
Glass 
Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE PHILOSOPHY 

and 

MECHANICAL PRINCIPLES 

of 
OSTEOPATHY. 



By 

ANDREW TAYLOR STILL, 

Discoverer of the Science of Osteopathy ; 

Founder and President of the American School of Osteopathy, 

KirJcsville, Adair County^ Missouri. 






1902. 

HUDSON-KIMBERLY PUB. CO. 

Kansas City, Mo. 



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Copyright, 1892, 
ANDREW TAYLOR STILL. 



Preface. 



In taking up a pen at my age, and assuming the re- 
sponsibility of writing a book on the causes and treatment of 
diseases, philosophically and in a comprehensible manner, with 
words and forms to meet the demands of this enlightened age, 
I feel it is a very great undertaking, and ask that the world 
give me its friendly criticism. Read and adopt, or reject, as 
you may feel disposed when you have perused what I may 
write. I start out on this journey alone, with no compass ex- 
cept my reason, and if I fail, no one will suffer for the trip 
excepting myself. 

A. T. S. 

January i, 1902. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

INTRODUCTION 9 

My Authorities 9 

Age of Osteopathy. 9 

Demand for Progress 11 

Truth Is Truth 15 

Man Is Triune 16 

Trash 17 

Osteopathy 18 

Nature Is Health 22 

Our Relation to Other Systems 24 

CHAPTER I.— Important Studies 27 

Anatomy 27 

Physiology 29 

Chemistry , 31 

Principles of Osteopathy 32 

Symptomatology 33 

Surgery 34 

CHAPTER II.— Some Substances op the Body 37 

Two Hundred Bones 37 

The Brain 40 

Cerebro-Spinal Fluid 43 

Spinal Cord 45 

What Are Nerves? 47 

Nerve Powers 50 

Three Conditions of the Blood-Corpuscles 51 

Fluids of the Body 53 

Blood 53 

Disease Defined 56 

The Fascia 60 

An Illustration of Conception 65 

Lymphatics 65 

Universally Distributed 65 

Definition of the Word "Treat" 69 



4 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

Page. 

CHAPTER III.— Divisions op the Body 72 

Mission of the Doctor 72 

Five Divisions 72 

CHAPTER IV.— Head, Face, and Scalp 77 

Causes of Effects 77 

Erysipelas 78 

Baldness 79 

Treatment of Erysipelas 81 

CHAPTER V.— The Neck 86 

Organized Substances of the Body. . 86 

Treatment of the Neck 87 

The Arm 88 

Structure of the Neck 89 

Croup, Diphtheria, Tonsillitis 91 

Treatment of Diphtheria 97 

Whooping Cough 98 

CHAPTER VI.— Thorax 101 

Inhibition and Stimulation 101 

Lungs — Place, Power, and Use 102 

Pneumonia 104 

Consumption 105 

Its Description 108 

Effects 108 

The Cause no 

Miliary Tuberculosis in 

Variety of Births 113 

Lung Diseases 116 

Found Effects 117 

Digestion n 8 

Its Philosophy 119 

The Heart 121 

Development 122 

Heart Disease 123 

Causes 1 25 

A Few Facts I2 6 

Aneurisms I2 & 

Rheumatism. . % T 3° 

The Internal and External Mammary Arteries 13 1 



CONTENTS. 5 

Page. 

CHAPTER VII.— Diaphragm 132 

New Discoveries 1 3 2 

Medical Doctors 1 34 

Importance of Splanchnics 1 35 

The Diaphragm in Health 13 6 

Out of Position 138 

Location 139 

Nervous Prostration 14° 

CHAPTER VIII .— Abdomen 146 

Inhibition 146 

Thoracic Duct , 150 

Feast of Reason. 15 2 

The Pancreas 1 58 

Importance of Pure Blood 159 

Function of^ Viscera 166 

The Mesentery 168 

Omentum 169 

Appendicitis 174 

What Are Abdominal Tumors? 178 

Prolapsed Viscera 180 

Liver 182 

Kidneys 183 

Stomach 186 

Process of Digestion by Electricity 188 

Constipation of the Bowels 189 

The Treatment of Constipation 190 

CHAPTER IX— Pelvis 194 

Diseases of Bladder 194 

Rectum 194 

Uterus 197 

Effects of Wounds 198 

Tumors , . 199 

In Health and Disease 200 

Gynecology 202 

Importance of a Healthy Womb 205 

Nature Our School . . . 207 

Anatomical Differences 208 

Our Instruments 210 

Machine Gives Out 2H 



6 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

CHAPTER IX.— Continued. Page . 

Examination 211 

Normal and Abnormal 213 

Treatment 215 

Whites, Leucorrhcea 217 

Dropsy 218 

Cause of Uterine Disturbances 219 

Less Haste with the Knife 221 

Tumefaction 223 

CHAPTER X.— Fevers 225 

What Are Fevers? 225 

Drugs a Failure 225 

An Array of Truths 227 

Begin with Facts 228 

On Fire 229 

Perfection in Nature 231 

Degrees of Heat 232 

Potter's Definition 234 

Fever's Only Effects 235 

Result of Stoppage of Vein or Artery 237 

Fevers Are Fevers 237 

Go to the Spine 239 

Congestion, etc 241 

Look for Lesions 242 

Summer and Winter Diseases 243 

Pedigree of Fevers 245 

Most Dreaded 245 

Temperature 246 

CHAPTER XL— Biogbn 248 

Development and Progress 248 

Origin of Action 249 

Forces Combined 251 

Matter in the Atom 254 

The Visible and Invisible 256 

Man Is Eternal 258 

Advent of Man 260 

Survival of the Weakest 260 

Mental Dwarfs 265 



CONTENTS 7 

Page. 

CHAPTER XII.— Smallpox 269 

Origin of Contagious Diseases 271 

The Use of Vaccine 274 

Jenner's Command Not Heeded. . . 276 

Credit Where Credit Is Due 277 

Dangers of Vaccination 278 

Stand Ready for the Fight 279 

Victory in a New Germicide 281 

What Smallpox Does 282 

Treatment of Smallpox 284 

Good Nursing 286 

Measles , . . 288 

A Comparison 289 

Scarlet Fever 290 

CHAPTER XIII.— Obesity 291 

CHAPTER XIV.— Ear -Wax and Its Uses 294 

Nature Makes Nothing in Vain 294 

CHAPTER XV.— Convulsions 302 

Old Systems Unreliable 3° 2 

Fits 303 

Rib Dislocations 3° 6 

CHAPTER XVI.— Obstetrics 308 

Morning Sickness 3° 8 

Cause 3°9 

Treatment 309 

Development of Foetus 3 IQ 

Preparation 3 1 2 

Caution 3 1 2 

First Examination 3 1 3 

Second Examination 3 : 3 

Care of Cord 3U 

Severing of Cord 3 1 5 

Dressing Cord 3 1 5 

Delivery of Afterbirth 3*5 

Care of Mother 316 

Post-Delivery Hemorrhage 3*7 

Treatment 3*7 

Diet 318 

Treatment of the Breast 3^ 



Introduction, 



My Authorities. 

I quote no authors but God and experience. Books com- 
piled by medical authors can be of little use to us, and it would 
be very foolish of us to look to them for advice and instruction on 
a science of which they know nothing. They are not able to 
give an intelligent explanation of their own composite theories, 
and they have never been asked to advise us. I am free to say 
that only a few persons who have been pupils of my school 
have tried to get wisdom from medical writers and apply it to 
any part of osteopathy's philosophy or practice. The student 
of any philosophy succeeds best by the more simple methods 
of reasoning. We reason for necessary knowledge only, and 
should try to start out with as many known facts and as few 
false theories as possible. 

Anatomy is taught in our school more thoroughly than in 
any other school, because we want the student to carry a living 
picture of all or any part of the body in his mind, as an artist 
carries the mental picture of the face, scenery, beast, or any- 
thing that he wishes to represent by his brush. I constantly 
urge my students to keep their minds full of pictures of the 
normal body. 

Age of Osteopathy. 

In answer to the question, " How long have you been 

teaching this discovery ? " I will say: I began to give reasons 

for my faith in the laws of life as given to men, worlds, and 

beings by the God of Nature, in April, 1855. I thought the 



IO PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

swords and cannons of Nature were pointed and trained upon 
our systems of drug doctoring. Among others, I asked Dr. 
J. M. Neal, of Edinburgh, Scotland, for some information that I 
needed badly. He was a medical doctor, a man of keen mental 
abilities, who would give his opinions freely and to the point. 
The only thing that made me doubt that he was a Scotchman 
was that he loved whisky, and I had been told that the Scotch 
were a sensible people. John M. Neal said that drugs were 
bait for fools ; that the practice of medicine was no science, 
and the system of drugs was only a trade, followed by the 
doctor for the money that could be obtained by it from the 
ignorant sick. He believed that Nature was a law capable of 
vindicating its power to cure. 

I will not worry your patience with a list of the names of 
authors that have written upon the subject of drugs as remedial 
agents. I will use the word that the theologian often uses when 
asked for whom Christ died: the answer universally is, "All." 
I began to realize the power of Nature to cure after a skillful 
correction of conditions causing abnormalities had been accom- 
plished so as to bring forth pure and healthy blood, the greatest 
known germicide. With this faith and by this method of rea- 
soning, I began to treat diseases by osteopathy as an exper- 
iment; and notwithstanding I obtained good results in all 
diseases, I hesitated for years to proclaim my discovery. But 
at last I took my stand on this rock, where I have stood and 
fought the battles and taken the enemy's flag in every engage- 
ment for the last twenty-nine years. 

Columbus had to navigate much and long, and meet many 
storms, because he had not the written experience of other 
travelers to guide him. He had only a few bits of driftwood, 
not common to his native country, to cause him to move as he 
did. But there was the fact, a bit of wood that did not grow 
on his home soil. He reasoned that it must be from some land 



INTRODUCTION. 1 1 

amid the sea, whose shores were not known to his race. With 
these facts and his powerful mind of reason, he met all opposi- 
tion, and moved alone, just as all men do who have no use for 
theories as a compass to guide them through the storms. This 
opposition a mental explorer must meet. I felt that I must 
anchor my boat to living truths and follow them wheresoever 
they might drift. Thus I launched my boat many years ago on 
the open seas, and have never found a wave of scorn nor abuse 
that truth could not ride and overcome. 

Demand for Progress. 

The twentieth century demands that advance in the heal- 
ing arts should be one of the leading objects of the day and 
generation, because of the truth that the advancement in 
that profession has not been in line with other professions. 
7 The present schools of medicine are injurious schools of drunken 
systems that are creating morphine, whisky, and other drug- 
taking habits, to the shame and disgrace of the advancement 
and intelligence of the age. A wisely formulated substitute 
should be given before it is everlastingly too late. The people 
become diseased now as in other days, and to heal them suc- 
cessfully without making opium fiends and whisky sots for 
life should call for and get the best attention that the mind 
of man can give. 

This work is written for the student of osteopathy; writ- 
ten to assist him to think before he acts, to reason for and hunt 
the cause in all cases before he treats; for on his ability to 
find the cause depends his success in relieving and curing 
the afflicted. 

With the posted osteopath all the old systems of treadng 
diseases are relegated to the waste-basket and marked "Obso- 
lete ' ' He must remember that the American School of Oste- 
opathy does not teach him to cure by drugs, but to adjust 



12 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

deranged systems from a false condition to the truly normal, 
that blood may reach the affected parts and relieve by the 
powers that belong to pure blood. The osteopath must re- 
member that his first lesson is anatomy, his last lesson is anat- 
omy, and all his lessons are anatomy. 

Like the Apprentice. 

He is like an apprentice who wishes to learn the trade 
of a carpenter. The carpenter's first instruction or his first 
lesson begins with the framework of the house. His instruct- 
or begins at the foundation, and he is positive and emphatic 
that it must be very solid, it must be perfectly square and level. 
Then his instructor, after having finished the foundation, tells 
him that his next lesson will be lectures and demonstrations 
on the sills, which have to be long enough to reach the whole 
length of the foundation walls. He saws off, splits and laps, 
and completes one corner of the building, and then proceeds 
to finish in like manner the remaining three corners, having 
fastened together and squared them by the mathematical 
rule of 6, 8, and io, well known to builders as the rule for 
obtaining a perfect square. At this time the instructor 
begins to teach the apprentice the importance of a good foun- 
dation. After finishing this instructive lecture, he tells the 
apprentice to observe the rule that must be followed to pre- 
pare this sill for the studding or ribs that are to stand firmly 
fixed and fastened to the sill upon the foundations. These 
ribs are intended to hold up the first and overhead floors, 
which are supported by joists extending from side to side of 
the building. The apprentice soon finds or is told that there 
must be a sill or wall-plate at the upper extremity of the stud- 
ding, to receive rafters and roof with all weights thereunto be- 
longing. Still the young man is not a carpenter, which he 
will observe when directed to put on the siding in a workman- 



INTRODUCTION 1 3 

like manner. Instruction is equally important at this stage 
of construction. He will rind that his first and many other 
boards that he puts on according to his own judgment are 
condemned and ordered pulled off by the master mechanic, 
because they do not meet the requirements of the plans and 
specifications. On his next examination the siding looks 
and shows well, and the young man smiles with the thought 
that he has pleased the old man once, and exclaims, "How 
will that do, boss?" which is answered by, "Did you forget 
to countersink the nails?" The young fellow says, "Oh, I 
did forget that." At this time the boss says to the appren- 
tice, "Notify the painter that one side of the house is ready 
for him." The boss is now ready to give instruction in ref- 
erence to the windows, which are to be raised and lowered 
both from above and below by ropes and pulleys. He as- 
sists the apprentice with a few of them, as this is a very impor- 
tant part of the work. Then he instructs and trusts the ap- 
prentice to proceed with the balance of the windows, and 
orders him to report when he has finished one. On inspec- 
tion the boss says, "O. K.; go on." He opens the plans and 
specifications and says, "We will now lay the permanent 
floors," gives a few instructions, adjusts a few boards, and 
tells the apprentice to go on with the work. After a time, 
the boss workman brings in the plans and specifications to 
ascertain whether the work is proceeding according to the 
plans, which read that the floors in all joints, both side and 
end, shall be keyed and squared to a perfect fit. He says 
to the apprentice: "There is a crack one-eighth of an inch 
all along this side of this board; and several boards do not 
meet at the ends because they have not been cut to the square. 
They will not be received nor paid for, because they have not 
been laid according to the plans and specifications; we will 
have to tear them up, and lose time, lumber, and nails. ' ! At 



14 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

this time the boss gives instruction in the use of the tri-square 
and saw, with these words, "I want you to pay special atten- 
tion and make all boards fit both at side and end." As we 
wish to stop further detailing, we will say that this rigidity 
in following the plans and specifications must be kept up un- 
til the last nail is driven, and as the house approaches closer 
to the finish there is a still greater demand for exactness, and 
the penalty is greater for omissions. There is just the same 
perfection of work demanded of the plumber, electrician, 
and plasterer as there was of the apprentice in the laying of 
the foundation and adjusting the framework. I have given 
this homely, well-known, everyday illustration in order to 
rivet on the mind of the student the working hypothesis that 
he is also an inspector, and, as an osteopath, he is to judge 
and adjust all defects or variations from the abnormal to the 
normal, as found in the plans and specifications for the healthy 
human body. The student begins this study with the bony 
framework of the house in which life dwells. He has found 
that the foundation and all parts have been wisely planned 
and definitely specified, when he thinks of that phrase found in 
Holy Writ which reads, ' ' Let us make man. ' ' That, to the stu- 
dent and operator, should mean, "Let us study man, who 
was made after wonderful plans and specifications, and when 
completed was pronounced not only good, but very good, by 
that scrutinizing Inspector who makes all and omits noth- 
ing. " In man's construction we have another cogent illus- 
tration of the truth that perfection in all parts can only be 
accepted as good. This hasty comparison I hope will assist 
the student when he goes forth to give health and harmony 
to the afflicted. 

This work, which is designated as a guide- or text-book 
for both student and operator, will be written with the pur- 
pose on the part of the author to assist the beginners and 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

the more advanced in their efforts to obtain good results by 
accommodating Nature to do its own mending and restoring. 
The doctor of osteopathy, as foreman, can only preside over 
a shop of repairs; and, in order that he may wisely proceed 
and make his investigations thoroughly, we think it best 
to divide the human body into a number of divisions, begin- 
ning with the head and neck and including such diseases as 
belong to that division, then the upper spine, chest, and its 
organs to the diaphragm, and from the diaphragm to the 
sacrum, and from the sacrum to the coccyx. All diseases 
common to the human race will be classified and presented 
in the plainest and most forcible words at my command, to 
enable the reader to fully comprehend the meaning of this 
philosophy, which is written to simplify a knowledge of the 
cause and cure of all curable diseases to which the human 
race is subject. 

Truth Is Truth. 

We often speak of truth. We say "great truths, ' ' and use 
many other qualifying expressions. But no one truth is 
greater than any other truth. Bach has a sphere of useful- 
ness peculiar to itself. Thus we should treat with respect 
and reverence all truths, great and small. A truth is the 
complete work of Nature, which can only be demonstrated 
by the vital principle belonging to that class of truths. Each 
truth or division, as we see it, can only be made known to us 
by the self-evident fact which this truth is able to demon- 
strate by its action. 

If we take man as the object on which to base the be- 
ginning of our reason, we find the association of many ele- 
ments, which differ in kind to suit the purpose for which 
they were designed. To us they act, to us they are wisely 
formed and located for the purpose for which they were de- 



1 6 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

signed. Through our five senses we deal with the material 
body. It has action. That we observe by vision, which 
connects the mind to reason. High above the five senses 
on the subject of cause or causes of action, is motion. By 
the testimony of the witness, the mind is connected in a man- 
ner by which it can reason on solidity and size. By smell, 
taste, and sound we make other connections between the 
chambers of reason and the object we desire to reason upon; 
and thus we get the foundation on which all five witnesses 
are arrayed to the superior principle, which is mind. 

Man Is Triune. 

After seeing a human being complete in form, self-mov- 
ing, with power to stop or go on at will, to us he seems to obey 
some commander. He seems to go so far and stop; he lies 
down and gets up; he turns round and faces the objects that 
are traveling in the same direction that he is. Possibly he faces 
the object by his own action. Then, by about-facing, he 
sees one coming with greater velocity, sees he cannot escape 
by his own speed, so he steps aside and lets that body pass 
on, as though he moved in obedience to some order. The by- 
stander would ask the question, "How did he know such a 
dangerous body was approaching?" He finds, on the most 
crucial examination, that the sense of hearing is wholly with- 
out reason. The same is true with all the five senses pertain- 
ing to man, beast, or bird. This being the condition of the 
five physical senses, we are forced by reason to conclude there 
is a superior being who conducts the material man, sustains, 
supports, and guards him against danger; and after all our 
explorations, we have to decide that man is triune when 
complete. 

First, there is the material body; second, the spiritual 
being; third, a being of mind which is far superior to all vital 



INTRODUCTION. 1 7 

motions and material forms, whose duty is to wisely manage 
this great engine of life. This great principle, known as mind, 
must depend for all evidences on the five senses, and on this 
testimony all mental conclusions are based, and all orders 
are issued from this mental court to move to any point or 
stop at any place. To obtain good results, we must blend 
ourselves with and travel in harmony with Nature's truths. 
When this great machine, man, ceases to move in all its parts, 
which we call death, the explorer's knife discovers no mind, 
no motion. He simply finds formulated matter, with no 
motor to move it, with no mind to direct it. He can trace 
the channels through which the fluids have circulated, and 
he can find the relation of parts to other parts; in fact, by 
the knife he can expose to view the whole machinery that 
once was wisely active. Suppose the explorer is able to add 
the one principle motion; at once we would see an action, 
but it would be a confused action. Still he is not the man 
desired. There is one addition that is indispensable to con- 
trol this active body, or machine, and that is mind. With 
that added, the whole machinery then works as man. The 
three, when united in full action, are able to exhibit the thing 
desired — complete. 

Trash. 

We must remember that when we write or talk, we have 
asked the reader or listener to stop all pursuits to read our 
story or listen to it. We must be kind enough to give him 
something in exchange for his precious time. We must re- 
member that time to an American is too valuable to be given 
for hours to a long story that does not benefit him. We care 
but little for what queens, kings, and professors have said; 
it is what you know that we want. Man's life is too short 
and useful to be spent reading any undigested literature that 



1 8 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

amounts to nothing. Suppose that a farmer should write 
on stock- or grain-raising, and his book informed the student 
just how Professor So-and-So planted, bred, and failed, and 
gave no lesson that did not close with a ' ' However, "or "I 
would remark, as stated before," and so on. Of what use 
would it be to the young agriculturist who read it, and if he 
had no other instruction, what would he amount to as a 
farmer? You know he would be a total failure in the pro- 
fession until he learned to be governed by known truths. 
His success depends on what he knows, and not on being able 
to recite what someone had failed to accomplish. 

Osteopathy. 

What is osteopathy? It is a scientific knowledge of 
anatomy and physiology in the hands of a person of intelli- 
gence and skill, who can apply that knowledge to the use of 
man when sick or wounded by strains, shocks, falls, or me- 
chanical derangement or injury of any kind to the body. An 
up-to-date osteopath must have a masterful knowledge of 
anatomy and physiology. He must have brains in osteo- 
pathic surgery, osteopathic obstetrics, and osteopathic prac- 
tice, curing diseases by skillful readjustment of the parts 
of the body that have been deranged by strains, falls, or any 
other cause that may have removed even a minute nerve 
from the normal, although not more than the thousandth 
of an inch. He_sees_cause in a slight anatomical deviation 
for the beginning of disease. Osteopathy means a knowl- 
edge of the anatomy of the head, face, neck, thorax, abdo- 
men, pelvis, and limbs, and a knowledge why health prevails 
in all cases of perfect normality of all parts of the body. Os- 
teopathy means a studious application of the best mental 
talents at the command of the man or woman that would 
hold a place in the profession. Osteopathy has no time to 



INTRODUCTION. 1 9 

throw away in beer-drinking, nor has it time to wear out shoe- 
leather carrying a cue around the pool- or billiard-table. It 
belongs to men of sober brains, men who never tire of anatomy 
and physiology or of hunting the cause of disease. An osteo- 
path answers questions by his learning. He proves what he 
says by what he does. An osteopath knows that to the day 
of the coming in of osteopathy, the whole medical world was 
almost a total blank in knowledge of the machinery and 
functions of the abdomen of the human body. The medical 
man to-day, if we judge his knowledge by what he does, is 
perfectly at sea as soon as he enters the abdomen. He com- 
bats bowel disease by methods handed down to him by symp- 
tomatology. Beginning with chronic constipations, he rea- 
sons not on the causes. His one idea is to fall onto a success- 
ful purgative drug, which never should be used excepting 
with great caution. When the most active purgatives fail, 
with the aid of injections, to effect a movement; the bowels 
filling up and packing the abdominal cavity so full and tight 
that no organ below the diaphragm can act and all motion 
is lost, even to the blockage of arterial and venous circula- 
tion of the blood; with the stomach crowded with food, then 
on to vomiting of fecal matter and the vitality low all over 
the body; what is left for the medical doctor but surgical 
interference? And he proceeds with his instrumental skill 
with hope and doubt. The osteopath gets his success with 
such diseases through adjustment of the abdominal viscera, 
with the view of relieving the bowels of bulks of fecal matter, 
either hard or soft, that are laboring to pass away from the 
body through the natural channels, but meet mechanical 
obstructions that are caused by kinks, folds, twists, and knots 
of the bowels, the result of heavy strains, lifts, and falls that 
have forced the bowels to abnormal positions in the abdo- 
men, deranging the mesentery at various points. The oste- 



20 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

opath feels that he is not justified in administering purga- 
tives, nor even injections into the bowels, until he has straight- 
ened out the viscera so that no resisting obstruction is liable 
to block the passing fecal matter. He proceeds as a mechanic. 

A Question op Intelligence. 

Osteopathy is not so much a question of books as it is of 
intelligence. A successful osteopath is in all cases, or should 
be, a person of individuality, with a mechanical eye behind 
all motions or efforts to readjust any part of the body to its 
original normality, because unguided force is dangerous, often 
doing harm and failing in giving the relief that should be the 
reward of well-directed skill. A knowledge of anatomy is 
only a dead weight if we do not know how to apply that knowl- 
edge with successful skill. That is all thv2re is to the question 
why our knowledge of anatomy should be more perfect than 
it is with any other school of the healing art. The osteo- 
path should be thoroughly educated by books and by drill, 
and in my reference to books I mean those that are essential 
to a complete knowledge of anatomy. 

For fear that the student will not comprehend what I 
mean by the books pertaining to a complete knowledge of 
anatomy, I will give something of an approximate list, as fol- 
lows: Descriptive anatomy, by the very best and latest 
authors; demonstrative anatomy, human physiology, histol- 
ogy, and chemistry. A thorough knowledge obtained in the 
branches named, pertaining to the one subject, anatomy, 
is the qualification necessary for the student. He must re- 
ceive instruction why and how to apply this knowledge of 
anatomy to useful purposes, with anatomical exactness, for 
the purpose of giving vent to suspended fluid circulation either 
to the parts of or from the body, locally or generally. 

With a correct knowledge of the form and functions of 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

the body and all its parts, we are then prepared to know what 
is meant by a variation in a bone, muscle, ligament, or fibre 
or any part of the body, from the least atom to the greatest 
bone or muscle. By our mechanical skill, preceded by our 
intelligence in anatomy, we can detect and adjust both hard 
and soft substances of the system. By our knowledge of 
physiology we can comprehend the requirements of the cir- 
culation of the fluids of the body as to time, speed, and quan- 
tity, in harmony with the demands of normal life. We think 
that osteopathy has proven that it is a short, true, and pow- 
erful science, strictly under natural law. 

Osteopathy an Independent System. 
It does not now ask nor has it ever asked help of allop- 
athy, homeopathy, eclecticism, or any other system of heal- 
ing. It claims independence from all of them, and ability 
to steer its way in the future as in the past. All systems 
depend on sending guns of wisdom into the camps of sickness 
with orders to kill disease, but not to hurt the sick man, 
woman, or child. No difference how deadly the poison the 
bullets contain, the gun must shoot and kill diseases and leave 
the patient well of all maladies. Some cure by wise looks 
and words to suit their snapping fingers. Then water cure, 
prayer, and so on through the list, come in. None has a 
foundation in a well-regulated system to insure good health 
and long life. Osteopathy proclaims and proves that suc- 
cess in cures comes when all joints in the body move as Na- 
ture ordered. We do not reason that Nature would turnout 
imperfect or inferior goods, for the market of this or any other 
world. Questions like the following must have a negative 
answer, with substantial proofs, before a drug doctor is able 
to argue intelligently for the demand or need of adding drugs 
to a sick man's blood: "Has Nature's God an abundance 
of skill to do good work in the workshops of Nature?'! 



22 philosophy and principles of osteopathy 

Nature Is Health. 

In Nature we look for good machines in form and action. 
We have learned to know that Nature does no imperfect 
work, but, on the other hand, does its work to perfection, 
and perfection is its watchword in all its parts and functions. 
The wise man has long since learned that no suggestions he 
can offer can do any good, but, as a rule, are vastly harmful. 
He often kills or ruins the machine to such a degree that it 
fails in part or in whole to do its work. He finds his supposed 
helps have disabled his man or woman even to death. The 
drug-giver is not satisfied that God has quite the wisdom 
necessary to make a machine that will do the work that all 
daily demands require. He hopes to do something to have 
life do better work. He sees only one thing in which to begin 
and end all his labors, ' 'drugs. ' ' 

Does a chemist get results desired by accident? Are 
your accidents more likely to get good results than his? Do 
order and success demand thought and cool-headed reason? 
If we wish to be governed by reason, we must take a position 
that is founded on truth and capable of presenting facts to 
prove the validity of the truths we present. All Nature is 
kind enough to exhibit specimens of its work as witnesses of 
its ability to prove its assertions by its work. Without that 
tangible proof, Nature would belong to the gods of chance, 
and the laws of mother, conception, growth, and birth, from 
atoms to worlds, would be a failure, a universe without a head 
to direct. But as the beautiful works of Nature stand, giv- 
ing us the evidence that all beings, great and small, come by 
the law of cause and effect, are we not bound to work by the 
laws of cause if we wish an effect? 

Our Relation to Other Systems. 
We hope to get the first premium of respect from the 
whole world for attending to our own business. We expect 



INTRODUCTION, 23 

to claim what we merit. We are free Americans. We do 
not want to lord it over other schools and we will not be lorded 
over, nor allow our just rights to be trampled upon or taken 
from us by any medical dictators. We expect to educate 
our students to a complete preparation, and to use all the 
time necessary in that preparation in surgery, obstetrics, 
and general practice. We will give to the qualified student 
his diploma, not at the end of two or four years, but when 
he has proven his knowledge of anatomy, physiology, chem- 
istry, surgery, obstetrics, and of all the principles taught in 
the American School of Osteopathy. We have no time to 
spend with any doubtful theory. It is quality, not quantity, 
that we want. Other systems may take quantity; we take 
quality, attend to our own business, and hope that other 
systems will attend to theirs. Our school was not created 
for a time-killer. Brevity should be our object. Qualified 
merit is the best thing a man can possibly possess. We want 
a full share of that. If we can get it in two years, by putting 
in every day and night in hard study and thorough drills, 
and can stand the severest tests of our knowledge and prove 
to the world that we know what we claim, then we want to 
be treated civilly while we pursue our profession. Our legisla- 
tures are friends to progress and will give us what we merit. 
They are all Americans, believe in fair fighting, will clear the 
ring, and see the best man win. A just verdict is all we ask. 
We have used no drugs to give children the lockjaw, and 
don't intend to, but if the members of the medical trust do 
not leave us alone, we will ask the legislature to give them 
a little anti-toxin to lock their meddlesome jaws, or have 
"cow-rot" injected into them and retire them to Hot Springs 
to get the cow syphilitic tetanus boiled out. I mean vaccine 
rot, that cursed filth that is taken from cows afflicted with 
mad itch, cows with all the venereal diseases of man and brute. 



24 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY, 

Old Systems Hard to Throw Off. 

All old systems of education that have been adopted by 
the people are very hard to throw off, because of the habits 
of professors who have been made teachers and have taken 
the places of their preceptors as instructors. They follow 
the old system without a murmur, for several reasons. First, 
the young teacher can teach that which he has been taught 
more easily than what he may feel should be taught. At 
this time the young man or woman feels that he must have 
a living before he can make a move or suggestion to change 
old methods of instruction for new. To lose his place and 
salary would nonplus him and turn him adrift in the world 
with the name of a fault-finder. As bread and meat are first 
with him, he decides to be silent for a year, then next and 
next year rolls around and his living holds him into silence, 
until it becomes second nature to him. He has lost all hope 
of reformation, and then cencludes to be a popular author. 
He begins to quote and clip and finally gets out a "new 
book," with no friction with other writers. His hair now 
begins to grow thin with suppressed ambition, and in a few 
years his hair all falls out and hope is forever gone. He has 
learned rote teaching and how to compile innocently from 
other old theories. Another and another generation follows 
this old system that has not given a single new thought for 
ages. Thus our people are dragged through centuries because 
the fear of losing bread and meat has kept the teachers in 
the narrow paths of the most ignorant days of any age known 
to history. I want volunteers to push this medical revolu- 
tion. We must conquer before our hair falls out or we will 
never succeed. I have just read a text-book on gynecology 
that gives a list of three hundred and fifty-seven other books 
quoted by the author. The book has only seven hundred 



INTRODUCTION, 25 

pages and there are three hundred and fifty-seven authors 
quoted. If there is a single hair on your heads, that one hair 
will give you sense enough to know that that man is only a 
clipper, an author by quotations. He is not the kind of an 
author that will ever be arrested, tried, and found guilty of 
leading a revolution and shot by court-martial. Our school 
has declared itself progressive. We try to fear the command, 
"Thou shalt not lie. ' ! Let us live up to our proclamations. 



CHAPTER I. 



Important Studies. 

\natomy. 

In early life I began the study of anatomy, believing it 
to be the "alpha and omega, " the beginning and the end, 
of all forms and the laws that give forms, by selection and 
the association of the elements, kinds and quantities, to the 
human body. The human form indicates an object. In the 
first place, it is constructed as a hieroglyphical representation 
of all beings and principles interested physically or mentally 
in the production of worlds, with their material forms, their 
living motions, and their mental governments. Man repre- 
sents the mind and wisdom of God to the degree of his endow- 
ments. This is shown by his display of knowledge, and ability 
to increase that knowledge to the degree of fullness attainable 
by his allotted mental perception, and by his accumulation 
and association of facts to the degree of able conclusions. 
He reasons because of the lack of that amount of mental abil- 
ity known as knowledge absolute. He can fill all the limits 
in his sphere, and no more. The fish can swim up to the sur- 
face of the water; it can dive to the bottom; it can swim the 
length and width of rivers and oceans in which it is prepared 
to dwell and explore — in obedience to that command, "Thus 
far shalt thou go, and no farther." The high-sailing birds 
are only the fish of the atmospheric ocean. They can touch 
the upper surface of this great ocean ; they can descend to the 
lower surface; their limits of life are between the superior 
and lower limits above cited. They can live, flourish, and 






28 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 



enjoy themselves in the field of usefulness for which they 
were created. The same of the fish. The same law is equally 
applicable to the human being. If the fish should change 
place with the bird, it would surely die and become extinct. 
The same law would be applicable to the bird. That element 
that sustains animal life belonging to each is abundantly 
supplied and dwells in its peculiar environment. The same 
law of extinction would be equally forcible should the bird 
try to dwell in the waters of the seas. Let us make the ap- 
plication of this crude base of our philosophy, and make a 
few changes for the convenience of reason. Suppose we 
should move the heart up to the cranial cavity and the brain 
down to the place now occupied by the liver, and the liver to 
the position of the lungs, and place the lungs on the sacrum; 
what would you expect but death to both fowl and fish? 
Thus the practical osteopath must be very exacting in ad- 
justing the system. He must know that he has done his 
work right in all particulars, in that the forms, great and 
small, all through the body, must be infinitely correct, with 
the object in view, that the necessary fuel and nutriment 
of life that is now in the hands of Deity may be adjusted 
to the degree of perfection that it was when it received the 
first breath of individualized life. 

Osteopathy is built upon the principle of debtor and 
creditor. We must willingly credit Nature with having done 
its work to perfection in all the machinery and functions of 
animal life, and that the after-results are good or bad accord- 
ing to centers and variations. If we observe any variations 
from the normal center, our work is never complete nor the 
reward due us until by adjustment we have reached the 
normal. We know our responsibility, and should labor to 
render a just account, and willingly submit our work to the 
anatomical critic. 



important studies. 29 

Physiology. 

Works on physiology at the present date are compila- 
tions of many theories and a few facts. In animal physiology 
we all know that a babe is not as big as a man, but that it 
may in time grow to man's size. To get large, man must 
be builded of material to suit his form. Each piece must be 
so shaped that in union with all other pieces a complete run- 
ning engine will be made, not by chance, but by the rule of 
animal engine-making. When complete, he is a self-acting, 
individualized, separate personage, endowed with the power 
to move, and mind to direct in locomotion, with a care for 
comfort and a thought for his continued existence in the 
preparation and consumption of food to keep him in size 
and form to suit the duties he may have to perform. 

So far, we are only able to see man in his completed 
form. We know but little of how he obtained his shape, 
size, and action. At this point we mentally ask, How is all 
this work done? We soon learn that the book of Nature is 
the only true source from which we can get such knowledge, 
and if we are to know the whys and hows of the wonderful 
work, we must enter the shops of Nature, observe, and reason 
from effect to cause. We know that if we ever know the whole, 
we must first know the parts. We take the dead man to the 
table and open all parts to view. We begin our book of knowl- 
edge under the wise teaching of experience. Here we launch 
out on the sea of anatomy. We cut away the skin that en- 
cases or covers the whole body. As soon as we pass through 
and remove the skin, we enter the fascia. In it we find cells, 
glands, blood- and other vessels, with nerves running to and 
from every part. Here we could spend an eternity with our 
present mental capacity, before we could comprehend even 
a superficial knowledge of the powers and uses of the fascia 



3© PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

in the laboratory of animal life. From the fascia we journey 
on to the muscles, ligaments, and bones, all in forms and con- 
ditions to suit Nature's great design of the living machine. 
By the knife we expose organs, glands, and blood-vessels. 

Let us treat " Physiology ' ' with due respect and credit 
old theories with all the light they give and all the good they 
have done, but do not be afraid of their wisdom. So far, 
they have only seen with the microscope that which appears 
in dead flesh and in chemical analyses of the dead compounds. 
They have tried to learn something. They say, ' ' Possibly, ' ' 
4 'However, ' ' ' 'Doubted by So-and-So, ' ' and "As we remarked 
before in our last lecture, that there was great differences of 
opinions on the subject of bacteria, microbes, and various 
other theories on the physiological action or blood-changes in 
croup, diphtheria, and all diseases of the throat, trachea, ton- 
sils, and glandular system during the rage of such epidemics. ' ' 
At about this time the student is told that in all diseases of 
the throat and lungs a wonderfully new remedy, antitoxin, 
in full and frequent doses, has been very favorably reported 
upon, and that less than 50 per cent of the cases of diphtheria 
had died under the antitoxin method of treating the disease. 
What I want to say to the student is about this : I think that 
at the very time a young doctor needs knowledge on the 
cause of diseases he is pushed into the idea that he must look 
over the recipe papers till he finds "Good for Croup" on a 
prescription-sheet. Then a copy is sent in haste to the drug 
store to be filled. The good but wise druggist does not have 
quite all the drugs named in the prescription, so he puts in 
substitutes. If the patient gets well, then the drug clerk 
compounds more of the mixture and tells the world what a 
wonderful " cure-all' ' he has found. The next prescription 
comes, but for another disease. The prescription is written 
by the same good old doctor; the same story — not all the 



IMPORTANT STUDIES. 3 1 

drugs on hand, another substitute is tried. That patient 
dies; all is quiet. The druggist feels skittish, hunts the pre- 
scription, and keeps it to show that the doctor sent the same, 
and tells that it was duly filled. He keeps the world wisely 
ignorant of substitutes. Thus the young doctor is led off by 
symptomatology to the idea that he must find something to 
give and take. 

Chemistry. 

As chemical compounds are not used by the osteopath 
as remedies, then chemistry as a study for the student is 
only to teach him that elements in Nature combine and form 
other substances, and without such changes and union no 
teeth, bone, hair, or muscle could appear in the body. Chem- 
istry is of great use as a part of a thorough osteopathic edu- 
cation. It gives us the reasons why food is changed in the 
body into bone, muscle, and so on. Unless we know chem- 
istry reasonably well, we will have considerable mental worry 
to solve the problem of what becomes of food after eating. 
By chemistry the truths of physiology are firmly established 
in the mind of the student of Nature. X He finds that in man 
wonderful chemical changes do all the work, and that in the 
laboratory of Nature's chemistry there is much to learn. By 
chemistry we are led to see the beauties of physiology. Chem- 
istry is one thing and physiology is the witness that it is a 
law in man as it is in all Nature. By chemistry we learn to 
comprehend some of the laws of union in Nature which we 
can use with confidence. In chemistry we become acquainted 
with the law of cause and change in union, which is a standard 
law sought by the student of osteopathy. 

Osteopathy believes that all parts of the human body 
act on chemical compounds, and from the general supply 
manufacture the substances for local wants. Thus the liver 



32 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

builds for itself the material that is prepared in its own di- 
vision laboratory. The same of heart and brain. No dis- 
turbing or hindering causes will be tolerated if an osteopath 
can find and remove them. We must reason that on with- 
holding the supply from a limb it would wither away. We 
suffer from two causes — want of supply and the burdens of 
dead deposits. 

Principles op Osteopathy. 

This branch of study, Principles of Osteopathy, gives us 
an understanding of the perfect plans and specifications fol- 
lowed in man's construction. To comprehend this engine 
of life, it is necessary to constantly keep the plans and spec- 
ifications before the mind, and in the mind, to such a degree 
that there is no lack of knowledge of the locations and uses 
of any and all parts. A complete knowledge of all parts, 
with their forms, sizes, and places of attachment, is gained, 
and should be so thoroughly grounded in the memory that 
there can be no doubt of the use or purpose of the great or 
small parts, and what duty they have to perform in the work- 
ing of the engine. When the specifications are thoroughly 
learned from anatomy or the engineer's guide-book, we will 
then take up the chapter on the division of forces, by which 
this engine moves and performs the duties for which it was 
created. In this chapter the mind will be referred to the 
brain to obtain a knowledge of that organ, where the force 
starts, and how it is conducted to any belt, pulley, journal, 
or division of the whole building. After learning where the 
force is obtained, and how conveyed from place to place 
throughout the whole body, one becomes interested and 
wisely instructed. He sees the various parts of this great 
system of life when preparing fluids commonly known as 
blood, passing through a set of tubes both great and small, 



IMPORTANT STUDIES. 33 

some so very small as to require the aid of powerful micro- 
scopes to see their infinitely minute forms, through which 
the blood and other fluids are conducted. By this acquaint- 
ance with the normal body which has been won by a study 
of anatomy and in the dissecting-rooms, he is well prepared 
to be invited into the inspection-room, to make comparison 
between the normal and the abnormal engines. He is called 
into this room for the purpose of comparing engines that 
have been thrown off the track or injured in collisions, bend- 
ing journals, pipes, or bolts, or which have been otherwise 
deranged. To repair this machine signifies an adjustment 
from the abnormal condition in which the machinist finds it 
to the condition of the normal engine. Our work would 
commence with first lining up the wheels with straight jour- 
nals. Then we would naturally be conducted to the boiler, 
steam chest, shafts, and every part that belongs to a com- 
plete engine. When convinced that they are straight and in 
place as designated in the plans and described in the specifi- 
cations, we have done all that is required of a master me- 
chanic. Then the engine goes into the hands of the engineer, 
who waters, fires, and conducts this artificial being on its jour- 
ney. As osteopathic machinists we go no further than to 
adjust the abnormal conditions back to the normal. Nature 
will do the rest. 

Symptomatology. 

With anatomy in the normal properly understood, we 
are enabled to detect conditions that are abnormal. It may 
be that by measurement we can discover a variation one-hun- 
dredth of an inch from the normal, which, though infinitely 
small, is nevertheless abnormal. If we follow the effects of 
abnormal straining of ligaments, we will easily come to the 
conclusion that derangements of one-hundredth part of an 



34 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY, 

inch are often probable of those parts of the body over which 
blood-vessels and nerves are distributed, whose duties are to 
construct, vitalize, and keep a territory, though small in 
width, fully up to the normal standard of health. The blood- 
vessels carrying the fluids for the construction and sustenance 
of the infinitely fine fibres, vessels, glands, fascia, and cellular 
conducting channels to nerves and lymphatics, must be ab- 
solutely normal in location before a normal physiological 
action can be executed in perfect harmony with the health- 
sustaining machinery of the body. If a nerve or vessel should 
be disturbed, we would expect delay and a subsequent de- 
rangement in the workings of the laboratory of Nature. Thus 
we recognize the importance of a thorough acquaintance 
with the large and small fibres, ligaments, muscles, blood- 
and nerve-supply to all the organs, glands and lymphatics 
of the fascia, and the blood-circuit in general. We wish 
you to make yourself so thoroughly acquainted with the 
human antomy that your hand, eye, and reason will be un- 
failing guides to all causes and effects. We wish to impress 
upon your minds that this is a living and trustworthy symp- 
tomatology, and not speculative, having its commencement 
in words and winding up with unreliable rehashings of anti- 
quated theories that have neither a father nor a mother whose 
counsel and milk have ever led their children beyond the 
yellow chalk-mark of stale custom, born and sustained to 
this day by the nightmare of stupidity, ignorance, and super- 
stition. This is the book of symptomatology that I wish 
you to purchase. Use it in place of all others. Its price is 
eternal vigilance. 

Surgery. 

Surgery, as taught in the American School of Osteop- 
athy, is to be used as often or as much as wisdom finds it 



IMPORTANT STUDIES, 35 

necessary in order to. give relief and save life or limb when all 
evidence with facts shows that blood cannot repair the in- 
juries. It is then and then only that we use surgery to save 
life, limb, and organs of the body from worse conditions, by 
allowing dead fluids to destroy them by poisoning absorptions. 
Surgeons of the Army or Government are the commissioned 
officers of health, with powers and instructions to use drugs 
or anything else for the relief of the wounded or sick soldier 
while in the service. Their duties extend to the use of both 
knife and spatula. Surgery has its place in the scientific 
uses, and I think it has grown to be a very great science. In 
the hands of a judicious person, it can be of untold benefit; 
but in the hands of a bigot, I think it is a deadly curse. Oste- 
opathy is surgery from a physiological standpoint. The os- 
teopathic surgeon uses ' 'the knife of blood" to keep out ' 'the 
knife of steel, ' ' and saves life by saving the injured or dis- 
eased limbs and organs of the body by reduction, in place of 
removing them. 

We want to avoid the use of the knife and saw as much 
as possible. We must be patient, and use freely a skillful 
knowledge of physiology, remembering all the time that cures 
come only as a result of physiological action after the most 
skilled surgeons of this and past ages have done their best 
work. We do not expect or even hope to improve on the 
skilled arts of surgery in amputations and other legitimate 
uses of the knife and saw; but we do hope to understand the 
forms and functions of the parts of the human body to a sav- 
ing degree of knowledge, and apply that knowledge in such 
a skillful manner that abnormal conditions demanding the 
use of the knife will not occur, such as tumors on and in the 
body, or stones in the bladder and gall-sac, which form when 
some function fails to keep lime and chalk and other sub- 
stances in solution as Nature intended they should be while 



36 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

in the circulation. If we can come to the rescue by produc- 
ing better drainage through the veins and excretory chan- 
nels, we prove our ability as surgeons by using Nature's 
knife in place of the surgical knife of steel. Growths in the 
abdomen, such as tumors, only form when some channel of 
drainage is shut off. If we wish to stop or remove a growth 
of any organ in the abdomen, we must line up the body in 
good form for the appropriation of the arterial blood by the 
organ to which it was sent out by the heart; then fix all the 
vessels of drainage, turn the nerves loose, and the work will 
be done. Too much use has been made of the knife, and too 
little trust placed in Nature. The knife can be seen. Nature 
is known only by the power of the gift of reason well applied. 
The knife, particularly for the last few years, gets larger rolls 
of cash for its work than the pills ; also the grave and heaven 
get more men and women — that is, if they have plenty of 
money to pay for their ride. Poor people seldom have tumors 
or appendicitis, because the doctor finds he can attend them 
without the knife. I tell you that it is the wealthy who gen- 
erally get the deadly knife. 



CHAPTER II. 



Some Substances of the Body. 

Two Hundred Bones. 

In the human body the osteopathic machinist finds about 
two hundred and six bones. No two fit the same joint or 
move in the same place. Bach one is made in a different 
form or shape. Bach shape indicates a different place and 
use. He finds one skull, two jaw-bones, seven neck-bones, 
twelve back-bones, five lumbar bones, one sacrum, two in- 
nominates, two thigh-bones, two feet with] twenty-six bones 
in each foot, two arms with three bones in each, two 
hands with twenty-seven bones in each hand, then two 
collar-bones and two shoulder-blades, and so on. In all no 
two alike. You know from your knowledge of anatomy 
that I am telling you the truth as to the numbers and differ- 
ences in forms and uses of the bones of the human body. 
Your reason tells you their natural places and how to place 
them in their proper places for the discharge of their func- 
tions in life's machinery. When you have been trained in 
schools of anatomy to know just how to place all the bones 
of a skeleton in their proper positions, in harmony with the 
one or ones with which they articulate, to meet the needs 
of the body, I say and believe that by the time you have 
learned all their natural unions and articulations, that you 
have learned enough to know when any bone is missing or 
put in the wrong place. I feel then that you will have re- 



38 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

ceived a criticising knowledge of what is right or wrong in 
the spine, ribs, and limbs, and all the bones of any part of 
the limbs, spine, or chest. 

Armed with the proof that you do know, let us begin 
and reason that the two hundred bones, all different in forms 
and uses, are all firmly fastened together with strong straps, 
and they must each have a differently shaped binding, strap, 
or ligament, and that strap must be long or short, thick, wide, 
or narrow, to suit the long, the short, or the flat bones of power 
and motion, of the head, face, neck, etc. Kvery bone of the 
back and chest, every bone of the limbs, and every other 
bone has muscles attached to it to hold it in its socket or place 
in which it moves or articulates. 

Bones Considered First. 
My object in this talk on the bones is to encourage your 
minds in plowing deeper in the fertile soil of reason/- I want 
you to see that all force, either stimulating, quieting, motor, 
nutrient, sensory, or any kind or quality of nerve-supply, 
comes to the muscles and glands and the organs of the whole 
system from some depository, and has got to get to its des- 
tined muscle, nerve, vein, or flesh through gates and open- 
ings in or between the bones. When these gates are shut 
or closed and the nerves lose control of the blood to a single 
muscle or a whole system of muscles, with all supplies of the 
fascia and cellular system cut off, then starvation and spasms 
of muscles appear and they become very contracted or hard. 
Right here is the red rag of the masseur or the osteopath > 
who dwells so much on the inhibiting nerves and muscles. 
His lack of knowledge in the field of philosophy leaves him 
in the field of a masseur only. He gets some good results, 
and thinks his rubs are the best rubs in the world. He tells 
you: "Have the patient lie on his breast, face down, hands 



SOME SUBSTANCES OF THE BODY. 39 

hanging down to the sides of the table; then have the oper- 
ator stand at the side of the table or leather-covered, uphol- 
stered bench, and look all over the spine and sacrum. If 
a high bone is here, a low or sunken place at the center or 
sides near the transverse processes where ribs are held in at- 
tachment to the spine by ligaments, you must treat here 
and there by pressing fingers heavily between ribs and spine 
and rub the back up and down with the hands on either side 
of the vertebral column. ' ' He has you work on the back, 
using a heavy pressure with a washerwoman's motion when 
she has a shirt on the washboard. The patient gets well or 
dies, and the masseur thinks his hands have a good wash- 
board when he is pushing a lean woman's skin, fascia, and 
rhomboid muscles over her ribs. He thinks he has a good 
job in a health laundry, and rubs hard, fast, and long. He 
thinks her ribs, twelve on each side, make as good a washboard 
as ' ' Mam ' ' ever washed a sock on. He never stops to think 
that ribs are tied to muscles, that they are tied to other ribs, 
and from them to points on the spine, and that better results 
than with great pressure of a man's hands on the back with 
up-and-down passes could be obtained." He should remember 
that slipped or twisted vertebrae and ribs must be sought out 
and adjusted, giving intercostal nerves thorough freedom to 
act and soften muscles and let blood loose to feed and nourish 
the whole spine. I contend that the curing comes direct 
from the liberation of the interspinous and costal nerves, 
freed from bone-pressure on the nerves of motion, sensation, 
and nutrition. 

How are we to proceed with the process of setting bones 
to their natural places, and what are bones supposed to do by 
way of hindering functional action when much or little at 
variance from their exact normal place on the bony framework? 
All nerve-power issues from the heart and brain, and both 



40 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

are storage batteries full of nerve-force all the time and ready- 
to supply any set of nerves. Why should we think other than 
that all these two storehouses require of the nervous system is 
to have open channels to receive such force as they require to 
do all functioning incumbent upon them? Open doors and con- 
tinued wires of life are all that are required by them as condi- 
tions before the brain and heart send out their active forces. Os- 
teopathy believes that the brain and heart are fully supplied 
with all the living forces, and will send power to any place with 
which they have nerve-connections without any rubbing or 
manipulation further than to insure unobstructive flow of the 
nerve-forces. That power gets abnormally slow or fast only 
when the full supply is cut off or limited before it leaves the 
bones surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Our work is done 
when we leave open the nerve-channels to the perfect eye of 
Nature's inspection. Blood- and nerve-force return to the 
normal when freedom is given the nerves to act. There is no 
need for an operator to unnecessarily tire himself and his 
patient when no good is to be derived from the effort. He is 
dealing with cause and effect. He must not fall back to the low 
plane of reason on which a masseur dwells. The latter's force 
is applied with no lamp of reason burning in his camp. The 
masseur works hard and gets some good results, but does not 
know how nor why they came, more than that he has given the 
patient a good "all-over rooting. ' ' We pay for a lamp of rea- 
son to guide us. We feel that we are only tinkling cymbals or 
sounding brass as osteopaths until we can have reason at the 
beginning and the end of all our methods or efforts to cure the 
afflicted. 

The Brain. 
Of all parts of the body of man, the brain should be the 
most attractive. It is the place where all force centers, where 



SOME SUBSTANCES OF THE BODY. 4 1 

all nerves are connected with one common battery. By its or- 
ders the laboratories of life begin to act on crude material and 
work until blood is formed and transformed into food for the 
nerves first, then the arteries and veins. The brain furnishes 
nerve-action and forces to suit each class of work to be done by 
that set of nerves which is to construct forms and to keep blood 
constantly in motion in the arteries and from all parts back to the 
heart through the veins, that it may be purified, renewed, and re- 
enter the circulation. Arterial motion is normal during all ages, 
from the quick pulse of the babe's arm to the slow pulse of the 
aged. At advanced age the pulse is so slow that heat is not suffi- 
ciently generated by the nerves, whose force is not great enough 
to bring electricity to the stage of heat. All temperature, high 
and low, surely is the effect of active electricity— plus to fever, 
minus to coldness. When an irritant enters the body by the 
lungs, skin, or in any other way, a change appears in the heart's 
action from its effect on the brain to a high electric action. 
That burning heat is called fever. If plus, we may have a vio- 
lent type, as in yellow fever; if minus, we may have low grades, 
as in typhus and typhoid fevers, and so on through the list. 

Thought Implies Action. 
To think implies action of the brain. We can grade thought, 
although we cannot measure its speed. Suppose a person in one 
line of business thinks fast enough to suit that kind of work. 
We will take a farmer who is devoting his time and energies to 
hog-raising. Now the question is, How fast does he think? How 
many revolutions do the wheels of his head make per minute to 
do all the necessary thinking connected with his business ? Say 
his mental wheels revolve one hundred times per minute. Then 
he adds sheep-raising to his business, and if that should require 
one hundred more revolutions, and he takes charge of raising 
draft-horses, with one hundred andseventv-five more revolutions 



42 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

added, you can see the wheels of his head are whizzing off three 
hundred and seventy-five vibrations per minute. And at this 
time he adds the duties of a carpenter, with three hundred more 
revolutions. Add them together, and you see six hundred and 
seventy-five. To this number he adds the duties and thoughts 
of a sheriff, which are numerous enough to buzz his wheels at 
fifteen hundred revolutions more, and you find twenty- one hun- 
dred and seventy-five to be the count of his mental revolutions 
so far. Now you have the great physical demands added to the 
mental motion which his brain has to support, yet he can do 
all, so far, fairly well. 

He now adds to his labors the manufacturing of leather from 
all kinds of hides, with the chemistry of fine tanning, and this 
adds a strain equal to the sum of all previous mental motions. 
Add and you find forty-two hundred and fifty revolutions all 
drawing on his brain each minute of the day. Add to this men- 
tal strain the increased action of his body which has to perform 
the duties, and you have the beginning of a worry of both mind 
and body, to which we will add manufacturing of engines, iron- 
smelting, rolling, etc. ; send him as a delegate to a national con- 
vention, give him thoughts of the death of a near relative, and 
add to this a security debt to meet during a money panic. By 
this time the mind begins to fag below the power of resistance. 

A continuance of these great mental vibrations for a long 
time finally stops nutrition of all or one-half of the brain, 
and we have a case of "hemiplegia," or the wheels of one-half 
of the brain run so fast as to overcome some fountain of nerve- 
force and explode some cerebral artery in the brain and deposit 
a clot of blood at some motor supply center or plexus. Thus we 
find men from over mental action fall in our national councils, 
courts, manufactories, churches, and in almost all places of great 
mental activity. Slaves and savages seldom fall victims to 
paralysis of any kind, but escape, for they know nothing of the 



SOME SUBSTANCES Otf THE BODY. 43 

strain of mind and hurried nutrition. They eat and rest, live 
long, and are happy. The idea of riches never bothers their 
slumbers. Physical injuries may and often do wound motor, 
sensory, and nutrient centers of the brain ; but the effect is just 
the same — partial or complete suspension of the motor and sen- 
sory systems. If you burst a boiler by high pressure or other- 
wise, your engine ceases to move. And just the same of an over- 
worked brain or body. Hemiplegia means, when divided, ' 'half ' ' 
and "I strike, ' ' or paralysis of one-half of the body. Hemiple- 
gia is usually the result of a cerebral hemorrhage or embolism. 
It sometimes occurs suddenly without other marked symptoms ; 
but commonly it is ushered in by an apoplectic attack, and on 
return of consciousness it is observed that one side of the body 
is paralyzed, the paralysis being often profound in the begin- 
ning, and disappearing to a greater or less extent at a later pe- 
riod. Hemiplegia is much more rarely produced by a tumor. 
It then generally comes on slowly, the paralysis gradually in- 
creasing as the neoplasm encroaches more and more upon the 
motor tracts, though the tumor may be complicated by the 
occurrence of a hemorrhage and a sudden hemiplegia. A grad- 
ual hemiplegia may also be produced by an abscess or chronic 
softening of the brain-substance. Other conditions or symp- 
toms presented will in such a case assist us to diagnose the 
nature of the lesion. 

Cerebro-Spinal Fluid. 
To satisfy the mind of a philosopher who is capable of know- 
ing truth, you must come at him outside of the limits of con- 
jecture, and address him only with self-evident facts. When 
he takes up the philosophy of the great subject of life, no sub- 
stitute can satisfy his mental demands. The one who would 
deal in conjectures or "supposed sos" should be placed in the 
proper category to which he belongs, which is the driftwood 



44 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

that floats down the dark river overshadowed by the night- 
mare of doubt and superstition. The seeker for truth is a man 
of few words, and they are used by him only to show the 
truths or facts he has discovered. He has no patience with 
the unmeaning records only offered to please the credulous 
and which are of little or no value, being nothing but long 
recitations of ungrounded statements. We will take man 
when formed. When we use the word "formed," we mean 
the whole building complete, with all organs, nerves, vessels, 
and every minutiae in form and material found or used in life. 
We look at the body in health as meaning perfection and 
harmony, not in one part, but as the whole. So far we are only 
filled with love, wonder, and admiration. Another period of 
observation appears to the philosopher. We find partial or 
universal discord from the lowest to the highest in action and 
death. Then the book of "whys "is opened and displays its 
leaves, calling for mental labor even to the degree of agony, to 
seek the cause or causes that produce failure of a limb insensation, 
motion, nutrition, voluntary and involuntary functional activ- 
ities. Our mind will explore the bone, the ligament, the mus- 
cle, the fascia, the channels through which the blood travels 
from the heart to local destination, with lymphatics and their 
contents, the nerves, the blood-vessels and every channel 
through or over which all substances are transmitted all over 
the body, particularly the disabled limb in question. It ob- 
tains blood abundantly from the heart. We continue our 
investigation, but the results obtained are not satisfactory, 
and another leaf is opened and the question appears, Why and 
where is the mystery, what quality and element of force and 
vitality has been withheld ? A thought strikes him that the 
cerebro-spinal fluid is one of the highest known elements that are 
contained in the body, and unless the brain furnishes this fluid 
in abundance, a disabled condition of the body will remain. He 



SOME SUBSTANCES OF THE BODY. 45 

who is able to reason will see that this great river of life must 
be tapped and the withering field irrigated at once, or the 
harvest of health be forever lost. 

The Sfinal Cord. 

I want to offer you facts — not advice only, but pure and 
well-sustained facts, the only witnesses that ever enter the 
courts of truth. A spinal cord is a fact ; you see it — thus a fact. 
That which you can see, hear, feel, smell, or taste is a fact, and 
the knowledge of the ability of any one fact to accomplish any 
one thing, how it accomplishes it, and for what purpose, is a 
truth sought for in philosophy. The spinal cord is the present 
fact for consideration. You see it, you feel it, and thus you 
have two facts with which you can start to obtain a knowledge 
of the use of this cord. In it you have one common, straight 
cylinder, which is filled with an unknown substance, and by an 
unknown power wisely directed. It is wisely formed, located, 
and protected. It throws off branches which are wisely ar- 
ranged. They have bundles, many and few. They are con- 
nected to their support, which is the brain, by a continuous cord. 
After it has concluded throwing off branches at local places for 
special purposes, then like a flashlight it throws off a bundle 
of branches, called the "horse-tail plexus, ' ' caudce equina, that 
conveys fluids and influences to the extremities to execute the 
vital work for which they are formed. While the laws of life 
and the procedure of nerves in executing and accomplish- 
ing the work designed by Nature for them to do is mysterious, 
And to the finite mind incomprehensible, you can only see what 
they do or perform after the work is done and ready for 
inspection. 

As we are dealing with the omnipresent nerve-principle of 
animal life, I will tell you this one serious truth, and support it 
by the fact of observation. -\. To treat the spine more than once 



46 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

or twice a week, and thereby irritate the spinal cord, will cause 
the vital assimilation to be perverted and become the death- 
producing executor by effecting an abortion of the living mole- 
cules of life before they are fully matured and while they are 
in the cellular system, lying immediately under the lymphatics. 
If you will allow yourself to think for a moment, or think at 
all of the possible irritation of the spinal cord, and what effect 
it will have on the uterus, for example, you will realize that I 
have told you a truth, and that I have produced an array 
of facts to stand by that truth. Many of your patients are 
well six months before they are discharged. They continue 
treatments, because they are weak, and they are weak because 
you keep them so by irritating the spinal cord." Throw off your 
goggles and receive the rays of sunlight which forever stand in 
the bosom of Reason. 

This is one of the most important chapters of this book, be- 
cause: at this point we turn over the engine of life to you as an 
engineer, and you are expected to wisely conduct it on its jour- 
ney. Your responsibility here is doubled. Your first position is 
that of a master draftsman who is capable of drawing plans and 
specifications whereby the engineer may know what the well- 
constructed machine is in every particular. He knows the parts 
and their relations as conductor and operator, and you are sup- 
posed to be the foreman in the shop of repairs. The living per- 
son is now the engine, Nature the engineer, and you the master 
mechanic. This being your position, it is expected that you 
will carefully inspect all parts of the engines brought to your re- 
pair shop, note all variations from the normal, and adjust them 
as nearly as possible to the conditions of the perfect model 
that stands in your mental shop. 

At this point it will be well to suppose a case by way of 
illustration. Suppose by some accident the bones of the neck 
should be thrown at variance from the normal by a bend or twist. 



SOME SUBSTANCES OF THE BODY. 47 

We may then expect inharmony in the circulation of the blood 
to the head and face, and to all the organs and glands above 
the neck. We will find imperfect supply of blood and other 
fluids to the head. We may also expect swelling of the head 
and face, with local or general misery. You would have a cause 
for headache, dizziness, blindness, enlarged tonsils, sore tongue, 
loss of sight, hearing, and memory, and on through the list of 
head diseases, all on account of the perverted circulation of the 
fluids. It is equally important to have perfect drainage from 
the parts, for without it the good results cannot be expected to 
follow your efforts to relieve diseases above the neck. 

What Are Nerves? 
Nerves are the children and associates of one mother — the 
heart. She, the heart, is the wise form-giving power of life. 
She is life centralized for the use of each and all animals. 
All beings are simply constructed through the wisdom in the 
vital energy contained in this mother's power. She plans and 
builds according to the forms necessary to execute the orders 
of her dictators. She is the mother, nerve, and soul of all nerves 
pertaining to this body. She orders, constructs, and repairs, 
and continues in constructing her work to absolute complete- 
ness. She is a graduate from the school of the Infinite, and 
her works are expected to show perfection in forethought, 
and are to be inspected, passed upon, received, or rejected 
by the scrutinizing mind of the Infinite, whose orders are very 
positive, always holding before her mind the penalty of torture 
and death for failing to do all her work to the fullest degree of 
physical perfection. The first command of the Infinite is for 
her to be at her post, to keep the picture of the plans forever be- 
fore her eye. Before she makes a motion to construct a fiber 
of flesh to cover her nakedness, she must open both eyes, and 
scrutinize and inspect carefully every fiber that enters into the 



48 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

material house known as the physical heart. First is formed 
the material heart, in which the spiritual establishes an office 
in which to dwell and oversee and enforce the requirements of 
the specifications for constructing the human body or that of 
any animal, fish, reptile, or bird. Having established the of- 
fice of life in which the plans and specifications stand in bold re- 
lief, she receives from her superior officer an order to prepare a 
laboratory in which the necessary material is prepared to enter 
into the construction of this divinely formed being. She runs 
or constructs a branch road of transportation to and from that 
manufactory, which is located at the proper distance from her 
office to give it plenty of room to carry on the business of man- 
ufacturing. She calls this, when done, the abdominal work- 
shop. In order not to be disturbed, she sends out her foreman 
with instructions to build a fence or wall around herself, and 
calls that wall the pericardium. Outside of that are other sep- 
arating walls, with attachments. At this important moment 
she reads in the specifications that she is expected to run out the 
necessary tracks for the construction of a storage battery, the 
brain, with the grand trunk line, the spinal cord, and connect 
that battery with her office, the grand central, with wires, the 
nerves. As she advances with the plans and specifications, she 
makes other connections and constructs lungs, liver, spleen, pan- 
creas, kidneys, bladder, genital organs, limbs of locomotion, the 
framework and the finished house, the thorax and abdomen. 
She patiently continues the performance of making all conven- 
iences necessary for the comfort of the indweller, the spiritual 
being. Thus we find the heart to be the mother of all the nerves 
of the human body, of all its parts and principles known in vi- 
tal action. From her vital chamber she delivers vitality to all 
forms, fibers, and functioning substances of life and motion. 
All parts of the body are wholly dependent on this vital center, 
and it can move and act without the assistance of any machine 



S0M3 SUBSTANCES OF THE BODY. 49 

or part of the machine to which she has given form and life. She 
charges one set of fibers with vitality, and we call them nerves 
of sensation ; she charges another set we call nerves of nutrition, 
and another set of wires we call nerves of motion. They have 
no motion, no sensation, no nutriment ; they are simply roads for 
the convenience of executing the orders as found in the plans 
and specifications of life. 

My object in the foregoing description of the heart is to 
draw the attention of the reader to another thought that I will 
present as well as I can. We can all comprehend that the heart 
is the engine of blood-force and supply. With this statement 
I will ask the question, Would the severing of a nerve produce 
paralysis of a limb or any division of the body, or would it be the 
tearing up of the road between the limb and the heart? It is 
true enough that the brachial nerve reaches the brain from the 
arm. If that nerve has been severed end motion destroyed, 
has it not separated the limb from the storage battery, the brain, 
from whence it was supplied? To illustrate this thought more 
forcibly, I will compare the heart to a tree whose fruit is good 
to eat, nice to behold, fine in flavor, and surely a child of the 
mother tree. The wood, the leaf, and the coloring matter of 
the leaf, limb, and fruit are simply physical expressions of the 
power of the mother tree to create variations in the several 
divisions of the tree. What evidence have we, that is abso- 
lute and undebatable, that all physical forces of the body are 
not conceived, developed, and issued from the heart? We speak 
of sensory nerves, nutrient nerves, motor nerves, voluntary and 
involuntary nerves, and to some degree we have described their 
special locations. By the knife and microscope we have found 
that all systems of nerves have one universal connection. We 
have found nothing that would warrant us in saying that the 
brain has any power to create nerve-fluid or force. We can talk 
about the brain of the head, the abdominal brain, the brain of 



50 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

the liver, and go on with such speculative divisions and find a 
new brain in every ganglion of the body, but we have only found 
storage batteries from the heart that are new to our observa- 
tion. We find one cluster in the lungs, one in the brain, one in 
the stomach and bowels, one at the kidneys, uterus, bladder, 
spine, and limbs, but all sing ' 'Sweet Home" to Mother Heart 
when peace and harmony prevail, and cry with anguish when 
she fails to communicate the glad tidings of health, peace, 
plenty, and harmony. Thus joy is perpetual when the watch- 
man cries, "All is well." 

Nerve -Powers. 

If we make a classification of nerve-forces, we will count 
five nerve-powers. They must all be present to build a part, 
and must answer promptly at roll-call, and work all the time. 
The names of these master workmen are Sensation, Motion, Nu- 
trition, Voluntary, and Involuntary. All must answer at every 
roll-call during life ; none can be granted a leave of absence for 
a moment. Suppose Sensation should leave a limb for a time, 
have we not a giving away there of all cells and glands ? A fill- 
ing up follows quickly, because Sensation limits and tells when 
the supply is too great for the use of the builder's purpose. Sup- 
pose the nerve-power known as Motion should fail for a time ; 
starvation would soon begin its deadly work for want of food. 

Suppose, again, the nerves of nutrition should fail to apply 
the nourishing showers ; we would surely die in sight of food. 
With the voluntary nerves we move or stay at will. At this 
time I will stop defining the several and varied uses of the five 
kinds of nerves, and begin to account for growths and other va- 
riations, from the healthy to the unhealthy conditions of man. 
The above-named nerve-forces are the five known powers of 
animal life, and to direct them wisely is the work of the doctor 
of osteopathy. 



SOME SUBSTANCES OF THE BODY. 5 1 

The osteopath has five witnesses to examine in all cases he 
has under his care. He must give close attention to the source 
and supply of healthy blood. If blood is too scant, he must 
look to the motor systems of blood-making. That would sure- 
ly invite his most careful attention and study to the abdomen. 
He cannot expect blood to quietly pass through the diaphragm 
if it is impeded by muscular constrictions around the aorta,vena 
cava, or thoracic duct. The diaphragm is often pulled down 
on both the vena cava and thoracic duct, obstructing blood and 
chyle from returning to the heart, so that it reduces the amount 
of the chyle below the requirement of healthy blood, or even 
suppresses the nerve-action of lymphatics to a degree causing 
dropsy of the abdomen, or a stoppage of venous blood by press- 
ure on the vena cava so long that venous blood is in stages of fer- 
ment when it enters the heart for renovation, and when purified 
and returned, the supply is too small to sustain life to a normal 
standard. 

Careful attention to the normal position of all the ribs to 
which the diaphragm is attached is essential. The eleventh 
and twelfth ribs are often pushed so far from their normal bear- 
ings that they are found turned in a line with the spine, with 
cartilaginous ends down near the ilio-lumbar articulation. 
When in such a position, they draw the diaphragm down heav- 
ily on to the vena cava at about the fourth lumbar. Then you 
have a cause for an intermittent pulse, as the heart finds poor 
passage for blood through the prolapsed diaphragm, which is also 
stopping the vena cava and producing universal stagnation of 
blood and other fluids in all the organs and glands below the 
diaphragm. 

Three Conditions of the Blood-Corpusci.es. 

In this school of philosophy we are led to consider the fas- 
cia and three conditions of the blood-corpuscles. By the per- 
fectly healthy corpuscle all constructed perfection of the body 



52 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

is produced. Perfect health is the natural result of pure blood. 
By it no deformities are constructed. On the other hand, we 
may have diseased or wounded corpuscles, which, when depos- 
ited in the mucous membrane by the conductors from the fas- 
cia, congregate and produce abnormal growths, such as fibroid 
tumors, cancers, and all abnormal conditions of flesh growths. 
Having had the perfection of the first stage or healthy corpus- 
cle, a biogenic life still exists in the wounded corpuscles. When 
these semi-normal corpuscles appear on the mucous membrane, 
they produce forms that are known by the name of microbes. 
They are natural to the body and come from the fascia, and in 
the condition of diminished health or vitality they are mistaken 
for foreign bodies, but they have not been added to the system 
from the outside. Thus we say membraneous croup microbes, 
diphtheria microbes, and so on. They are carried to the mucous 
membrane in this semi-vital condition of biogenic life, and, 
with their affinity for one another, congregate upon the mucous 
membrane of the trachea, mouth, or throat generally. 

Now we will consider the third and last corpuscle, or the 
dead corpuscle. When it leaves the fascia from any part of the 
system and arrives in the mucous membrane of the lungs, it is 
simply dropped out into the lung-cells as dead matter, and we 
have consumption and all other wasting diseases of the lungs. 
We wish it to be understood that thus far we have been speak- 
ing of the lymphatics of the fascia. We can account by this 
philosophy for the cause of cancer and other growths, which will 
be mentioned as we proceed with the subject of disease and 
cause. We will be more elaborate as we take up and describe 
the diseases that come from the blood confounded in the fascia, 
artery, muscle, vein, or the nervous systems. Through the 
three conditions of the blood while in the fascia we can reason- 
ably account for effects, such as good health, or abnormal 
growths and physical wastes. At this time we wish to call your 



SOME SUBSTANCES OF THE BODY. 53 

attention to the electrical disturbance of nerve-fibers as they 
cross one another and produce another manifestation known 
as fever heat, or lower temperature. 

Fluids of the Body. 
If a thousand kinds of fluids exist in our bodies, a thousand 
uses require them, or they would net appear. To know how and 
why they exist in the economy of life is the study of the man 
who acts only when he knows at what places each must appear 
and fill the part and use for which it is designed. If the demand 
for a substance is absolute, its chance to act and answer that call 
and obey the command must not be hindered while in prepara- 
tion, nor on its journey to its destination, for upon its power all 
action may depend. Blood, albumen, gall, acids., alkalies, oils, 
brain-fluid, and other substances, formed by associations while 
in physiological processes of formation, must be on time, in place, 
and measured abundantly, that the biogenic laws of Nature can 
have full power and time to act. Thus all things else may be in 
place and in ample quantities and yet fail, because the power is 
withheld and there is no action for want of brain-fluids with 
their power to vivify all animated nature. We can do no more 
than to feed and trust the laws of life as Nature gives them to 
man. We must arrange our bodies in such true lines that ample 
Nature can select and associate, by its definite measures and 
weights and its keen power of choice of kinds, that which can 
make all the fluids needed for our bodily uses, from the crude 
blood to the active flames of life, as they are seen when mar- 
shalled for duty, obeying the edicts of the mind of the Infinite. 

Blood. 

Blood is an unknown red or black fluid, found inside of the 

human body, in tubes, channels, or tunnels. What it is, how it 

is made, and what it does in the arteries after it leaves the heart, 

before it returns to the heart through the veins, is one of the 



54 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

mysteries of animal life. We have tried to analyze it, to discover 
of what it is composed, and when done we know but little more 
of what it really is than we know of what sulphur is made. We 
know it is a colored fluid, and it is in all parts of flesh and bone. 
We know it builds up flesh, but "How?" is the question that 
leads us to honor the unknowable law of life, by which the work 
of mysterious construction of all forms found in the parts of 
man is done. In all our efforts to learn what it is, what it is made 
of, and what enters it as life and gives it the building powers 
with the intelligence it displays in building that we see in daily 
observation, is to us such an incomprehensible wonder that with 
the "sacred writers" we are constrained to say, "Great is the 
mystery of Godliness. ' ' I dislike to say that we know very lit- 
tle about the blood — in fact, nothing at all; but such is the truth. 
We cannot make one drop of blood, because of our ignorance of 
the laws of its production. If we knew what its component 
parts were and their combination, we would soon have large ma- 
chinery manufacturing blood, and have it for sale in quantities 
to suit the purchaser. But alas ! with all the combined intelli- 
gence of man, we cannot make one drop of blood, because we 
do not know what it is. Then, as its production is by the skill 
of a foreigner whose education has grown to suit the work, we 
must silently sit by and willingly receive the work when hand- 
ed out to us for use by the producer. At this point I will say 
that an intelligent osteopath is willing to be governed by the 
immutable laws of Nature, and feels that he is justified to pass 
the fluid on from place to place and trust results. 

When Harvey solved by his powers of reason a knowledge 
of the circulation of the blood, he only reached the banks of the 
river of life. He saw that the heads and mouths of the rivers of 
blood begin and end in the heart to do the mysterious works of 
constructing man. Then he went into camp and left this com- 
pound for other minds' to speculate on — how it was made, of 



some substances of the body. 55 

what composed, and how it became a medium of life which sus- 
tains all beings. He saw the genius of Nature had written 
its wisdom and will of life, by the red ink of all truth. 

Blood is systematically furnished from the heart to all di- 
visions of our bodies. When we go any course from the heart, 
we will find one or more arteries leaving the heart. If we go to- 
ward the head, we find carotid, cervical, and vertebral arteries 
in pairs, large enough to supply blood abundantly for bone, 
brain, and muscle. That blood builds the brain, the bone, 
nerves, muscles, glands, membranes, fascia, and skin. Then we 
see wisdom just as much in the venous system as in the arterial. 
The arteries supply all demands, and the veins carry away all 
waste material. We find building and healthy renovation 
are united in a perpetual effort to construct and sustain purity. 
In these two are the facts and truths of life and health. If we 
go to any other part or organ of the body, we find just the same 
law of supply, arteries first, then renovation, beginning with the 
veins. The rule of artery and vein is universal in all living be- 
ings, and the osteopath must know that and abide by its rulings, 
or he will not succeed as a healer. Place him in open combat 
with fevers of winter or summer and he saves or loses his patients 
just in proportion to his ability to sustain the arteries to feed and 
the veins to purify by taking away the dead substances before 
they ferment in the lymphatics and cellular system. He shows 
stupidity and ignorance of support from arteries and the purify- 
ing powers as carried along through the veins when he fails to 
cure erysipelas, flux, pneumonia, croup, scarlet fever, diphtheria, 
measles, mumps, rheumatism, and on to all diseases of climate 
and seasons 

It is ignorance of and inattention to the arteries to supply 
and the veins to carry away deposits that lead to the forma- 
tion of tumors in lungs, abdomen, or any part of the system. 
Man's ignorance of how and why the blood renovates and why 



56 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

tumors are formed has allowed the knife to be found in the belts 
of so many doctors to-day. On this law osteopathy has suc- 
cessfully stood and cured more than any school of cures, and 
has sustained all its diplomates, financially and otherwise. I 
write this article on blood for the student of osteopathy. I 
want him to put Nature to a test of its merit, and know if it is 
a law equal to all demands. If not, he is very much and seri- 
ously limited when he goes into war with diseases. 

Disease Defined. 
When we use the word "disease," we mean anything that 
makes an unnatural showing in the body — overgrowth of mus- 
cle, gland, organ, physical pain, numbness, heat, cold, or any- 
thing that we find not necessary to life and comfort. I have 
no wish to rob surgery of its useful claims, and its scientific mer- 
its to suffering man and beast. My object is to place the oste- 
opath's eye of reason on the hunt of the great "whys" that the 
knife is useful at all. It comes in often to remove growths and 
diseased flesh and bone that have formed owing to man's igno- 
rance of a few great truths. If blood is allowed to be taken to a 
gland or organ, and not taken away in due time, the accumu- 
lation will become bulky enough to stop the excretory nerves 
and cause local paralysis. Then the nutrient nerves proceed 
to construct tumors, and on and on until there is no relief but 
the knife or death. Had this blood not been conveyed there, 
it would not be there at all, either in bulk or less quantities. 
Had it simply done its work and passed on, we would have 
had no material to develop such abnormal beings. If a tume- 
faction appears in one side and not in the other, why is it on 
one side and not on the other? It takes no great effort of mind 
to see that the veins did not receive and carry off the blood, 
and a growth was natural, as the conditions would not permit 
anything else and be true to Nature. Thus man's ignorance 



SOME SUBSTANCES OF THE BODY. 57 

has made a condition for the knife. Had he taken the hint and 
let the blood pass on when its work was done, he would not have 
had to witness the guillotine taking his patients, whose early- 
pains told him a renal vein or some vessel below the diaphragm 
was ligated by an impacted colon, or that a few ribs were pull- 
ing and bringing the diaphragm down across the vena cava and 
thoracic duct, causing excitement or paralysis of the solar 
plexus, or any other nerves that pass through the diaphragm, 
through which also passes blood to and from the heart and 
lungs. ^/ 

How to find causes of diseases or where a hindrance is lo- 
cated that stops blood is a great mental worry to the osteopath 
when he is called to treat a patient. The patient tells a doctor 
"where he hurts," how much "he hurts," how long "'he has 
hurt, ' ' how hot or cold he is. The medical practitioner then 
puts this symptom and that symptom in a column, adds 
them up according to the latest books on symptomatology, and 
finally he is able to guess at a name by which to call the disease. 
Then he proceeds and treats as his pap's father heard his 
granny say their old family doctor treated "them sort of diseases 
in North Carolina." An osteopath, in his search for the cause of 
diseases, starts out to find the mechanical cause. He feels that 
the people expect more than guessing of an osteopath. He feels 
that he must put his hand on the cause and prove what he says 
by what he does ; that he will not get off by the feeble-minded 
trash of stale habits that go with doctors of medicine. By his 
knowledge he must show his ability to go beyond the musty 
bread of symptomatology. 

An osteopath should be a clear-headed, sober, conscientious, 
truth-loving man, and never speak until he knows he has found 
and can demonstrate the truth he claims to know. I partially 
understand anatomy and physiology after fifty years of close 
attention to the subject. The last twenty years have been spent 



58 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

in giving close attention to what has been said by all the best 
writers, many of whom are considered standard guides for the 
student and practitioner. I have dissected and witnessed the 
work of the very best anatomists in the world. I have followed 
the knife through the whole distribution of the blood of arterial 
systems to the great and small vessels, until the lenses of the 
most powerful microscopes seemed to exhaust their ability 
to perceive the termination of the artery. With the same care 
I have followed the knife and microscope from the nerve-center 
to terminals of the large to the infinitely small fibers around 
which those fine nerve-vines entwine, first, like the bean, entwin- 
ing by way of the right, and then, turning my microscope, 
finding the entwining of another set of nerves to the left, like 
the hop. Those nerves are solid, cylindrical, and stratified in 
form, with many leading from the lymphatics to the artery, 
and to the red and white muscles, fascia, cellular membrane, 
striated and unstriated organs, all connecting to and traveling 
with the artery, and continuing with it through its whole circuit 
from start to terminals. 

Like a thirsty herd of camels, the whole nervous system, sen- 
sory, motor, nutrient, voluntary, and involuntary, seems to be 
in sufficient quantities and numbers to consume all the blood 
and cause the philosopher to ask the question, "Is not the labor 
of the artery complete when it has fed the hungry nerves?" 
Is he not justified in the conclusion that the nerves gestate and 
send forth all substances that are applied by Nature in the con- 
struction of man? If this philosophy be true, then he who 
arms himself for the battles of osteopathy when combating dis- 
eases has a guide and a light whereby he can land safely in port 
from every voyage. 

Turn the eye of reason to the heart and observe the blood 
start on its journey. It leaves in great haste and never stops, 
even in the smaller arteries. It is always in motion, and very 



SOME SUBSTANCES OF THE BODY. 59 

quick and powerful at all places. Its motion indicates no evi- 
dence of construction during such time, but we can find in the 
lymphatics cells or pockets in which motion is slow enough to 
suppose that in those cells living beings can be formed and 
carried to their places by the lymphatics for the purposes for 
which they are intended, as bone or muscle. Let us reason 
that blood has a great and universal duty to perform, if itcon- 
structs, nourishes, and keeps the whole nervous system normal 
in form and function. 

As blood and other fluids of life are ponderable bodies of 
different consistencies, and are moved through the system to 
construct, purify, vitalize, and furnish power necessary to keep 
the machinery in action, we must reason on the different powers 
necessary to move those bodies through arteries, veins, ducts, 
over nerves, spongy membranes, fascia, muscles, ligaments, 
glands, and skin, and judge from their unequal density, and ad- 
just the force to meet the demand according to kinds. 

Suppose venous blood is suspended by cold or other causes 
in the lungs to the amount of oedema of the fascia ; another men- 
tal look would see the nerves of the fascia of the lungs in a high 
state of excitement, cramping fascia onto veins, which would be 
bound to cause an interference with the flow of blood to the 
heart. No blood can pass through a vein that is closed by such 
resistance, nor can it ever do it until the resistance is sus- 
pended. Thus the cause of nerve-irritation must be found and 
removed before the channels can relax and open sufficiently to 
admit the passage of the obstructed fluids. In order to remove 
this obstructing cause, we must go to the nerve-supply of the 
lungs, or other parts of the body, and direct our attention to 
the cause of the nerve-excitement, and that only, and prosecute 
the investigation to a finish. If the breathing be too fast and 
hurried, address your attention to the motor nerves and then to 
the sensory, for through them vou regulate and reduce the ex- 



60 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

citement of the motor nerves of the arteries. As soon as sensa- 
tion is reduced, the motor and sensory circuit is completed and 
the labor of the artery is less, because venous resistance has 
been removed. The circuit of electricity is complete, as proven 
by the completed arterial and venous circuit for the reduc- 
tion of motor irritation. The high temperature disappears 
because distress gives place to the normal, and recovery is 
the result. 

The Fascia. 

I know of no part of the body that equals the fascia as a 
hunting-ground. I believe that more rich golden thoughts will 
appear to the mind's eye as the study of the fascia is pursued 
than of any other division of the body. Still one part is just as 
great and useful as anv other in its place. No part can be dis- 
pensed with. 

In every view we take of the fascia a wonder appears. The 
part the fascia takes in life and death gives us one of the great- 
est problems to solve. It surrounds each muscle, vein, nerve, 
and all organs of the body. It has a network of nerves, cells, 
and tubes running to and from it; it is crossed and no doubt 
filled with millions of nerve-centers and fibers which carry on the 
work of secreting and excreting fluids vital and destructive. 
By its action we live and by its failure we die. Each muscle 
plays its part in active life. Each fiber of. all muscle owes its 
pliability to that yielding septum -washer that allows all muscles 
to glide over and around all adjacent muscles and ligaments 
without friction or jar. It not only lubricates the fibers, but 
gives nourishment to all parts of the body. Its nerves are so 
abundant that no atom of flesh fails to get nerve- and blood- 
supply therefrom. 

This life is surely too short to solve the uses of the fascia 
in animal forms. It penetrates even its own finest fibers to sup- 



SOME SUBSTANCES OF THE BODY. 6l 

ply and assist their gliding elasticity. Turn the visions of your 
mind to follow those infinitely fine nerves. You see the fascia, 
and in your wonder and surprise you exclaim, "Omnipresent in 
man and all other living beings of the land and sea. ' ' 

Other great facts come to the mind with joy and admira- 
tion as we see all the beauties of life on exhibition in the won- 
ders found in the fascia. The soul of man, with all the streams 
of pure living water, seems to dwell in the fascia of his body. 
Does it not throw hot shot and shells of thought into man's fam- 
ishing chamber of reason to feel that he has seen in the fascia, 
the framework of life, the dwelling-place in which life sojourns? 
He feels that he there can find all disturbing causes of life, the 
places in which diseases germinate and develop the seeds of 
sickness and death. 

As the student of anatomy explores the subject with his 
knife and microscope he easily finds this fascia going with 
and covering all muscles, tendons, and fibers, and separating 
them even to the least fiber. All organs have coverings of this 
substance, though they may have special names by which they 
are designated. I write at length of the universality of the 
fascia to impress the reader with the idea that this connecting 
substance must be free at all parts to receive and discharge all 
fluids, and to appropriate and use them in sustaining animal 
life, and eject all impurities, that health may not be impaired by 
dead and poisonous fluids. A knowledge of the universal ex- 
tent of the fascia is imperative, and is one of the greatest aids to 
the person who seeks the causes of disease. The fascia and its 
nerves demand his attention, and on his knowledge of them 
much of his success depends. 

Will the student of osteopathy stop just a moment and see 
his medical cotemporary plow the skin with the needle of his 
hypodermic syringe ? He drives it in and unloads his morphine 
and other poisonous drugs under the skin into the very center 



Ca PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

of the nerves of the superficial fascia. He produces paralysis 
of all the nerves of the body by this method, just as certainly 
as if he had put his poison into the cerebellum, but in a manner 
not so certain to produce instantaneous death as it would had it 
been unloaded in the brain. But if he is faithfully ignorant, he 
will cause death just as surely at one place as the other, be- 
cause the poisonous effects are carried along to every fiber of 
the whole body by the nerves and fibers of the fascia. 

When you deal with the fascia you are doing business with 
the branch offices of the brain, under a general corporation law, 
and why not treat these branch offices with the same degree of 
respect? The doctor of medicine does effectual work through 
the medium of the fascia. Why should not you relax, contract, 
stimulate, and clean the whole system of all diseases by that 
willing and sufficient power you possess to renovate all parts of 
the system from deadly compounds that are generated on ac- 
count of delay and stagnation of fluids while in the fascia? 

Our science is young, but the laws that govern life are as 
old as the hours of all ages. You may find much that has never 
been written nor practiced before, but all such discoveries are 
truths born with the birth of eternity, old as God and as true 
as life. 

We must remember, as we study the fascia, that it occupies 
the whole body, and should we find a local region that is dis- 
ordered, we can relieve that part through the local plexus of 
nerves which controls that division. Your attention should 
be directed to all the nerves of that part. Blood must not be 
allowed to flow to the part by wild motion. Its flow must be 
gentle to suit the demands of nutrition, otherwise weakness 
takes the place of strength, and we lose the benefits of the 
nutritive nerves. Suppose the nerves that supply the lungs 
with motion should stop acting ; the lungs would also stop. Sup- 
pose they should come to a half stop; the lungs would surely 



SOME SUBSTANCES OF THE BODY. 63 

follow suit. Now we must reason, if we succeed in relieving 
lungs, that all kinds of nerves are found in them. The lungs 
move, thus you find motor nerves; they have feeling, thus the 
sensory nerves; they grow by nutrition, thus the nutrient 
nerves. They move by will, or without it; they have a vol- 
untary and involuntary system. 

The blood-supply comes under the motor system of nerves, 
and is delivered at proper places for the convenience of the nerves 
of nutrition. The sensory nerves limit the supply of arterial 
blood to the quantity necessary, as construction is going on at 
each successive stroke of the heart. They limit the action of 
the lungs, receive and expel air in quantities sufficient to keep up 
the purity of the blood, etc. With this foundation, we observe 
that if there is too great action of the motor nerves, as shown by 
an abnormal increase in breathing, we are admonished to reduce 
breathing by addressing attention to the sensory nerves of 
the lungs, in order that the blood may pass through the veins, 
whose irritability has refused to receive the blood, further than 
capillary terminals. As soon as sensation is reduced, relaxation 
of nerve-fibers of veins tolerates the passage of venous blood, 
which is deposited in the spongy portions of the lungs in such 
quantities as to overcome the activity of the nerves of renova- 
tion, an activity that accompanies the fascia in its process of 
ejection of all fluids that have been detained an abnormal time, 
first in the region of the fascia, then in the arterial and venous 
circulation. Thus you see what must be done. The veins as 
channels must carry away all the blood as soon as it has depos- 
ited its nutrient supplies to the places for which they were in- 
tended ; otherwise, by delay, vitality by asphyxia is lost to the 
blood, which calls for a greater force from the arterial pumps 
to drive the blood through the parts, rupturing capillaries and 
depositing the blood in the mucous membrane, until finally 
nerves of the fascia become powerless by surrounding pressure, 



64 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

and, through the sensory nerves, an irritability sets in at the 
heart, which is driven to still greater efforts. 

As life finds its general nutrient law in the fascia and its 
nerves, we must connect them to the great source of supply by 
a cord running the length of the spine, by which all nerves are 
connected with the brain. The cord throws out millions of 
nerves to all organs and parts which are supplied with the ele- 
ments of motion and sensation. All these nerves go to and ter- 
minate in that great system, the fascia. 

As we dip our cups deeper and deeper into the ocean of 
thought we begin to feel that the solution of life and health is 
close to the field of the telescope of our mental searchlights, 
and soon we will find the road to health so plainly written that 
the wayfaring man cannot err though he be a fool. 

Disease is evidently sown as atoms of gas, fluids, or solids. 
A'suitable place is first necessary for the active principle of the 
disease, be that what it may. Then a responsive kind of nour- 
ishment must be obtained by the being to be developed. Thus 
we must find in animals that part of the body which assists by 
action and by food in developing the being in foetal life. Rea- 
son calls the mind to the rule of man's gestative life first, and 
as a basis of thought we look at the quickening atom, the com- 
ing being, when only by the aid of a powerful microscope can 
we see the vital germ. It looks like an atom of white fibrin or 
detached particle of fascia. It leaves one parent as an atom of 
fascia, and, in order to live and grow, must dwell in friendly sur- 
roundings, and be fed by such food as is found in blood and 
lymph. The nerve-generating power must also be considered. 
As the fascia is the best equipped with nerves, blood, and white 
corpuscles, it is only reasonable to expect the germ to dwell 
there for support and growth. 



some substances op the body. 65 

An Illustration of Conception. 

When you follow the germ from the father after it has left 
his system of fascia, we find it nourishing in the womb, an organ 
which is almost a complete being of itself, the center, origin, 
and mother of all fascias. It there dwells and grows to birth, 
and appears as a completed being, a product of the life-giving 
powers of the fascia. 

The fascia is universal in man, and stands before the world 
to-day a great problem. It carries to the mind of the philoso- 
pher the evidence absolute, that it is the "material man. ' ' It 
is the fort which the enemy of life takes by conquest through 
disease, and, completing the combat, unfurls the black flag of 
"no quarter." That enemy is sure to capture all the forts 
known as human beings at some time, although the engagement 
may last for many years. A delay in the surrender can only be 
obtained by giving timely support to the supply of nourish- 
ment, that powerful life force that is bequeathed to man and all 
other beings, and acts through the fascia of man and beast. 

The Lymphatics. 
A student of life must take in each part of the body and 
study its uses and relations to other parts and systems. We 
lay much stress on the uses of blood and the powers of the nerves, 
but have we any evidence that they are of more vital import- 
ance than the lymphatics ? If not, let us halt at this universal 
system of irrigation, and study its great uses in sustaining ani 
mal life. Where are the lymphatics situated - t" 
Where are they not found? No space is so 
of connection with the lymphatics, wit, 

tory and excretory ducts. The system of lymphatics is coinpieL 
and universal in the whole body. After beholding the lym- 
phatics distributed along all the nerves, blood-channels, mus- 
cles, glands, and all the organs of the body, from the brain to 



66 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

the soles of the feet, all loaded to fullness with watery liquids, 
we certainly can make but one conclusion as to their use, which 
would be to mingle with and carry out all impurities of the body, 
by first mixing with the substances and reducing them to that 
degree of fineness that will allow them to pass through the 
smallest tubes of the excretory system, and by that method 
free the body from all deposits of either solids or fluids, and leave 
nourishment. 

Possibly less is known of the lymphatics than any other 
division of the life-sustaining machinery of man. Ignorance 
of that division is often equal to a total blank with the oper- 
ator. Finer nerves dwell with the lymphatics than even with the 
eye. The eye is an organized effect, the lymphatics the cause, 
and in them the principle of life more abundantly dwells. No 
atom can leave the lymphatics in an imperfect state and get a 
union with any part of the body. There the atom obtains form 
and knowledge of how and what to do. The fluids of the brain 
are of a finer order than any fluids supplying the whole viscera. 
By nature, coarser substances are necessary to construct the or- 
gans that run the blast and rough-forging divisions. The lym- 
phatics prepare, furnish, and send the atoms to the builder that 
he may construct by adjusting all according to Nature's plans 
and specifications. Nature makes machinery that can produce 
just what is necessary, and, when united, produces what the 
wisest minds would exact. 

The lymphatics are closely and universally connected with 
the spinal cord and all other nerves, and all drink from the 
waters of the brain. By the action of the nerves of the lym- 
phatics, a union of qualities necessary to produce gall, sugar, 
acids, alkalies, bone, muscle, and softer parts, is brought about so 
that elements can be changed, suspended, collected, and asso- 
ciated and produce any chemical compound necessary to sustain 
animal life, wash out, salt, sweeten, and preserve the being from 



SOME SUBSTANCES OF THE BODY. 67 

decay and death by chemical, electric, atmospheric, or climatic 
conditions. By this we are admonished in all our treatment 
not to wound the lymphatics, as they are undoubtedly the life- 
giving centers and organs, and it behooves us to handle them 
with wisdom and tenderness, for by and from them a withered 
limb, organ, or any division of the body receives what we call a 
"reconstruction," or is builded anew. Without this cautious 
procedure, your patient had better save his life and money by 
passing you by as a failure, until you are by this knowledge qual- 
ified to deal with the lymphatics. 

Why not reason on the broad plain of known facts, and 
give the cause of a person having complete prostration. When 
all systems are cut off from a chance to perform and execute 
such duties as Nature has allotted to them, we have pros- 
tration. Motor nerves must drive all substances to and sensa- 
tion must judge the supply and demand. Nutrition must be 
in action on time, and keep all parts well supplied with power, 
or a failure is sure to appear. We must ever remember the de- 
mands of Nature on the lymphatics, liver, and kidneys. They 
must work all the time or a confusion will result, and a defi- 
ciency in the performance of their duties will mean a crip- 
pling of some function of life over which they preside. 

Universally Distributed. 
Dunglison's definition of the lymphatics is very extensive, 
comprehensive, and right to the point for our use as doctors of 
osteopathy. He describes the lymphatic glands as countless 
in number, universally distributed all through the human body, 
containing vitalized water and other fluids necessary to the sup- 
port of animal life, running parallel with the venous system, 
and more abundantly there than in other locations of the 
body, at the same time discharging their contents into the veins 
while conveying the blood back to the heart from the whole sys- 



68 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

tern. Is it not reasonable to suppose that, besides being nutrient 
centers, they accumulate and pass water through the whole 
secretory and excretory systems of the body, in order to reduce 
nourishment from a thick to a thin constituency, that it may 
easily pass through the tubes, ducts, and vessels interested in the 
distribution of materials as nourishment first, and renovation 
second, through the excretory ducts. The question arises, 
Whence cometh this water? This leads us back to the lungs. 
With a fountain of life-saving water provided by Nature to wash 
away impurities as they accumulate in our bodies, would it not 
be great stupidity in us to see a human being burn to death by 
the fires of fever, or die from asphyxia by allowing bad or dead 
lymph, albumen, or any substance to load down the powers of 
Nature and keep the blood from being washed to normal purity. 
If so, let us go deeper into the study of the life-saving powers 
of the lymphatics. Do we not find in death that the lym- 
phatics are dark, and in life they are healthy and red? 

What we meet with in all diseases is dead blood, stagnant 
lymph, and albumen in a semi- vital or dead and decomposing 
condition all through the lymphatics and other parts of the 
body, brain, lungs, kidneys, liver, and fascia. The whole sys- 
tem is loaded with a confused mass of blood that is mixed with 
unhealthy substances that should have been kept washed out 
by lymph. Stop and view the frog's superficial lymphatic 
glands. You see all parts move just as regularly as the heart 
does. They are all in motion during life. For what purpose 
do they move if not to carry the fluids to sustain the building-up 
processes, while the excretory channels receive and pass out all 
that is of no farther use to the body? Now we see this great 
system of lymphatics is the source of construction and purity. 
If this be true, we must keep the lymphatics normal all the time 
or see confused Nature in the form of disease. We strike at 
the source of life and death when we go to the lymphatics. 



SOME SUBSTANCES OF THE BODY. 69 

No part is so small or remote that it is not in direct con- 
nection with some part or chain of the lymphatics. The doc- 
tor of osteopathy has much to think about when he consults 
natural remedies, and how they are supplied and administered, 
and as disease is the effect of tardy deposits in some or all parts 
of the body, reason would bring us to a search for a solvent 
of such deposits, which hinder the natural motion of blood and 
other fluids in functional works, and with that solvent we are 
to keep the body pure from any substance that would check vi- 
tal action. When we have searched and found that the lym- 
phatics are requisite for the body, we then must admit that 
their use is equal to the abundant and universal supply of all 
the glands. If we think and use a homely phrase, and say that 
disease is only too much dirt in the wheels of life, then we will 
see that Nature takes this method to wash out the dirt. As an 
application, pneumonia is too much dirt in the wheels of the 
lungs. If so, we must wash it out. Nowhere can we go for a 
better place for water than to the lymphatics. Are they not 
like a fire company with nozzles in all windows ready to flush 
the burning house ? 

Definition of the Word ' 'Treat.' 3 ! 
Here I want to emphasize that the word "treat" has but 
one meaning — that is, to know you are right, and do your work 
accordingly. I will only hint, and would feel embarrassed to 
go any further than to hint to you the importance of an undis- 
turbed condition of the five known kinds of nerves ; namely, sen- 
sation, motion, nutrition, voluntary, and involuntary, all of 
which you must endeavor to keep in perpetual harmony while 
treating any disease. If you allow yourself to reason at all, 
you must know that sensation must be normal and always on 
guard to give notice by local or general misery of unnatural ac- 
cumulation of the circulating fluids. Every nerve must be free 



70 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

to act and do its part. Your duty as a master mechanic is to 
know that the engine is kept in a perfect condition, so that 
there will be no functional disturbance to any nerve, or vein, or 
artery that supplies and governs the skin, the fascia, the muscle, 
the blood, or any fluid that should be in free circulation to sus- 
tain life and renovate the system from deposits that would 
cause what we call disease. 

Your osteopathic knowledge has surely taught you that, 
with an intimate acquaintance with the nerve- and blood- 
supply, you can arrive at a knowledge of the hidden cause of dis- 
ease, and conduct your treatment to a successful termination. 
This is not by your knowledge of chemistry, but by the knowl- 
edge of the anatomy of man, and of what is normal and what 
abnormal, what is effect and what is the cause. Do you ever 
suspect renal or bladder trouble without first receiving knowl- 
edge from your patient that there is soreness and tenderness 
in the region of the kidneys at some point along the spine? 
By this knowledge you are invited to explore the spine for the 
purpose of ascertaining whether it is normal or not. If, by 
your intimate acquaintance with a normal spine, you should de- 
tect an abnormal form, although it be small, you are then ad- 
monished to look out for disease of the kidneys, or bladder, or 
both, from the discovered cause for disturbance of the renal 
nerves by such displacement, or some slight variation from the 
normal in the articulation of the spine. If this is not worthy 
of your attention, your mind is surely too crude to observe those 
fine beginnings that lead to death. Your skill would be of little 
use in incipient cases of Bright 's disease of the kidneys. Has 
not your acquaintance with the human body opened your mind's 
eye to observe that in the laboratory of the human body the 
most wonderful chemical results are being accomplished every 
day, minute, and hour of your life? Can that laboratory be 
running in good order and tolerate the formation of a gall- or 



SOME SUBSTANCES OF THE BODY. 7 1 

bladder-stone? Does not the body generate acids, alkalies, and 
all substances and fluids necessary to wash out all impurities? 
If you think an unerring God has made all those necessary 
preparations, why not so assert yourself, and stand upon that 
ground? 

You cannot do otherwise, and not betray your ignorance 
to the thinking world. If in the human body you can find the 
most wonderful chemical laboratory mind can conceive, why 
not give more of your time to that subject, in order that you 
may obtain a better understanding of its workings ? Can you 
afford to treat your patients without such qualification? Is it 
not ignorance of the workings of this divine law that has given 
birth to the foundationless nightmare now prevailing to such an 
alarming extent all over civilization, that a deadly drug will 
prove its efficacy in warding off disease in a better way than has 
been prescribed by the intelligent God who has formulated 
and combined life, mind, and matter in such a manner that it 
becomes the connecting link between a world of mind and that 
element known as matter? Can a deep philosopher do otherwise 
than conclude that Nature has placed in man all the qualities 
for his comfort and longevity? Or will he drink that which is 
deadly, and cast his vote for the crucifixion of knowledge? 



CHAPTER III. 



Divisions of the Body. 

Mission ov the Doctor.' 

To find health should be the object of the doctor. Any- 
one can find disease. He should make the grand round among 
the sentinels and ascertain if they are asleep, dead, or have de- 
serted their posts, and have allowed the enemy to get into the 
camp. He should visit all posts. Before he goes out to make 
the rounds, he should know where all the posts are,and the value 
of the supply he has charge of, whether it be shot, shell, food, 
clothing, arms, or anything of value to the company or division. 

Five Divisions. 
So great a subject as the study of man, not to be superfi- 
cial, must be divided into two or more parts. While the head 
and neck are related to and connected with the whole body, 
their importance to that body of which they are parts cannot 
be comprehended without a thorough and special acquaintance 
with all forms and substances passing through in transit and re- 
turn. Without knowing the function of the brain, we cannot 
know its uses. Therefore an acquaintance to a general under- 
standing is absolutely necessary, that we may regulate our treat- 
ment, which is only an inspection and adjustment of the head to 
its true position with the neck. As the neck is compound in its 
attachments, first to the head and then to the body, the import- 
ance of knowledge has doubled itself, because the neck receives 
and transmits fluids from the body to the brain, through its or- 
ganized machinery, and to the body or chest with all its machin- 



DIVISIONS OF TH£ BODY. 73 

ery, which receives at the heart nutrient elements from below 
and delivers the same to the lungs for such preparation as is in- 
cumbent upon that division of life 's sustaining machinery. We 
need a good knowledge of the head and neck and the relation 
they bear to the lungs, the great renovators and vitalizers of 
fluids previous to their return to the heart for general uses. 

It is of the greatest importance to thoroughly know the 
parts and uses of both the heart and lungs, where and how both 
have received their forms, forces, and materials that enter into 
those forms, and the power sustaining divisions, how they are 
supported in their duties. We see, in order to keep the chest 
and lungs normally healthy, we must know how, where, and why 
they act, and we can only know this by an intimate acquaintance 
with the forms and functions of the head and all therein belong- 
ing, with the neck, in which all of the thoroughfares are found 
and through which forces are transmitted. 

When we shall have mastered a reasonable comprehen- 
sion of these divisions, we are only feebly prepared to enter a 
new and more extended field, with its connected oneness in re- 
ceiving blood and other substances and appropriating them to 
the duties of constructing machinery to receive gases, blood, 
and other substances and associating them in such a manner 
that they become the living corpuscles of construction, not only 
with the ability to build up muscles, but the ability from 
a germ to begin the addition of atom to atom through all 
steps of foetal life to a perfectly formed human being, with 
all organs, glands, and substances. We must see the great 
importance of the highest known intelligence that can be 
accumulated by the study of the human body from head to 
abdomen, because here we are in a city of living wonders per- 
taining to life. At this point, beginning with the first lumbar, 
we have an unexplored field of great truth presented to our 
minds, which should imply how much injury can be admit- 



74 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

ted and not go beyond the power of repair. In the fourth 
and fifth divisions, better understood as the region of the abdo- 
men and pelvis, if wounds, falls, punctures, or other injury would 
cause impingement upon any nerve, vein, or artery, how far 
can Nature tolerate any such encroachment and still be able to 
keep up something of a normal appearance? How far can such 
injuries proceed without causing failure to a degree that would 
produce piles, leucorrhea, monthly convulsions, fibroid and 
other forms of tumefaction, ulcers, B right's disease of the kid- 
neys, gall-stones, bladder-stones, enlarged liver, diseased spleen, 
jaundice, dropsy, varicose veins, and many other diseases that 
we have not space to enumerate here? Has not man's inability 
to comprehend this important question given birth and place 
to a resort to try to solve such questions by the rules of hit or 
miss, better known as symptomatology? Does not Nature, 
with a knowledge of the machinery, offer a more reliable sys- 
tem of locating cause by adjusting that machinery so that it 
can remove the cause and change effect? 

These five points of observation for the osteopath to re- 
member in his examination will easily cover the whole body. 
We cannot overlook any one of them and successfully examine 
any disease of the system. Local injuries are, however, an ex- 
ception to this rule, but even a local hurt often causes general 
effect. Suppose a fall should jar the lumbar vertebrae and push 
some of the articulations to the front or back or to the side. 
Say we have the lumbar vertebrae disturbed and one or two short 
ribs turned down against the lumbar nerves, with a prolapsed 
and loosened diaphragm and pressure on the abdominal aorta, 
vena cava, and thoracic duct. Have we not cause there for 
the stoppage or derangement of the circulation in the arteries, 
veins, lymphatics, and all the organs below the diaphragm? 
Heart trouble would then naturally result. Fibroid tumors, 
painful monthlies, constipation, diabetes, dyspepsia, or any 



DIVISIONS OF THE BODY. 75 

trouble of the system that could be caused by bad blood would 
also naturally follow. If blood, lymph, or chyle are kept 
too long below the diaphragm, they become diseased before 
they reach the lungs, and after renovation but little good blood 
is left. Then the dead matter is separated from the blood and 
blown out while in a vaporous state at the lungs. Thus there 
is not enough nutriment to keep up the normal supply. In this 
state the patient loses flesh and is in an enfeebled condition gen- 
erally, because of the trouble the blood and lymph have in pass- 
ing through the diaphragm. The failure of the free action of 
blood produces general debility, congestion, low types of fever, 
dropsy, constipation, tumefaction, and on to the whole list of 
visceral diseases. 

We are then called to the pelvis. If the innominate bones 
are twisted on the sacrum or are driven too high or too low, an 
injury to the sacral system of nerves would be cause for con- 
gestion, inflammation of the womb, or bladder diseases, with a 
crippled condition of all the spinal nerves. This would cause 
hysteria, and on to the whole list of diseases due to spinal inju- 
ries. The osteopath has great demand for his powers of reason 
when he considers the relation of diseases generally to the pel- 
vis, and this knowledge he must have before his work can be 
done successfully. 

As I said, five points comprise the fields in which an osteo- 
path must search. I have given you quite pointedly, although 
not at length, a few hints on the spine and sacrum, which cover 
the territory below the diaphragm. I will simply refer you to 
the chest, neck, and brain, and say, "Let your searchlight al- 
ways shine brightly on the brain. " On it we must depend for 
power. Most of the nerves run through the neck and branch off 
to the heart and brain, the two most important parts of man. 
Search faithfully for causes of diseases in the head, neck, chest, 



76 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

spine, and pelvis, for all the organs, limbs, and parts are direct- 
ly related to and depend on these five localities to which I have 
just called your attention. With your knowledge of anatomy, 
I am sure you can practice and be successful, and you should be 
successful in all cases over which osteopathy is supposed to 
preside. 



CHAPTER IV. 



Head, Face, and Scalp. 

Causes of Effects. 

It is useless to enumerate all the diseases peculiar to the 
head, face, and scalp. If a shortage of blood-supply should be 
apparent in any organ or division of the head, reason would say, 
"Turn on a greater supply of blood ; see that there is no obstruc- 
tion to the nerve-forces. ' ' On the other hand, if the scalp and 
face should be puffed out of shape by blood and water, address 
your attention to the venous and lymphatic drainage, and keep 
that up until completed. Your knowledge of nerve-supply for 
blood, lymphatics, and all organs of the head should guide you 
correctly here, and it will if you have given due attention to in- 
structions in anatomy and physiology. This work is not writ- 
ten to teach a lazy student where to punch and pull, who has 
neglected to receive the benefits of the instructions provided for 
him in school. The same rule holds equally good with diseases 
of the neck, breast, and abdomen. You have all details freely 
given in clinic instruction. 

We often find a lesion which may appear as a growth or 
withering away of a limb, affecting all its muscles, nerves, and 
blood-supply. In cases of tumors on the scalp, loss of hair, 
eruptions of the face, growth of tonsils, ulcers on one or both 
ears, growths on the outside and inside of the eyes, a cause must 
precede the effect in all these cases. A pain in the head is an ef- 
fect. Cause is older than the effect, and is absolute in all vari- 
ations from normal conditions. A tumor on the head and un- 



78 PHIUDSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

der the skin is an effect only. It took matter to give it size, it 
took power to deliver that substance. The fact that a tumor 
was formed shows that the power to build was present and did 
the work of construction. Another power should have been 
there to complete the work at that location. That power is the 
carrying off of the dead matter after the work of construction 
was complete. 

ERYSIPElvAS. 

This philosophy knows no life nor death except through the 
motion of the blood and the inaction of that fluid, which contains 
life while in motion and death as the effect of motion ceasing. 
Without giving in detail the divisions and bones of the head, I 
will say, in considering the subject of diseases of the head, that 
the head is composed of hard bones covered with soft flesh 
and filled with brain, blood, nerves, and membranes. It has di- 
visions to suit the functions of the inner chamber of the crani- 
um or skull. On the under side or surface of the skull there are 
many holes, foramina, or openings, to accommodate the blood- 
vessels and other structures that supply and drain the brain. 
On the outside of the skull the head is covered with soft 
substances, skin, fascia, muscles, nerves, veins, secretives, 
and excretives. This human head shows many effects, dis- 
eases, whose cause can be traced to lack of nourishing blood- 
supply, to poor drainage and exhausted fluids, which should be 
returned through the venous or thrown out through the excre- 
tory system. With this known fact and your knowledge of 
anatomy, I think you are very well qualified to answer the 
question, What is the cause of erysipelas, with its fiery swelling 
which spreads over the skin of the face and scalp of the head, 
to the complete occupation of both? Here is a detention of 
blood, detained long enough to cause what is commonly known 
as erysipelas of the head and scalp. That visible effect is a re- 



head, Face, and scalp. 79 

suit of an action known as fermentation of the fluids that should 
have passed from the veins and membranes of the scalp, the 
fascia, lymphatics, and cellular system of the head and face. 
When I ask you where and how the blood is conveyed from the 
face back to the heart, you will describe the blood-vessels that 
empty into the jugular veins, internal and external, giving a short 
enumeration of the external veins of the face, the facial, the tem- 
poral, the angular, the transverse nasal, the frontal, post-auric- 
ular, and occipital, which empty into the external and internal 
jugular. The failure or stoppage of blood that has caused this 
facial erysipelas can easily be traced to the large veins that should 
keep the face thoroughly drained. You see where the trouble 
is, and by that knowledge know that you must assist the ob- 
structed drainage to the normal. Then your labor is done ; the 
arterial and venous energies will take care of the necessary drain- 
age and repair. When erysipelas attacks the nose only, your 
work is directed to the facial and nasal veins. Should the ery- 
sipelas localize itself between the ear and occipital region, your 
work would be to encourage the discharge of venous blood 
through the auricular and occipital veins. Should the tongue be 
swollen, your treatment would extend to the lingual, superior 
thyroid, and anterior jugular veins. By this method we obtain 
reduction of bulky deposits and swellings of the face, and know 
that normal action will follow judicious renovation. The stu- 
dent will ever remember that no action can be suspended in the 
arterial supply and venous drainage of the face and scalp and 
not leave visible marks by such failure. 

Baldness. 

At this time it would be well enough to point the stu- 
dent to baldness or hair-failure, due to a lack of nourishment 
on the part of the artery and lack of drainage by the vein. To 
this we will add dandruff, scald-head, pimples, spots, and dis- 



80 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

colorations of the face. All have absolute causes for their ap- 
pearance, and it is for us to detect the cause and apply the rem- 
edy. The importance of a good knowledge of the blood-supply 
of the face and scalp is patent. 

As we have dwelt somewhat on the venous drainage, we 
will now give, by way of refreshing the student's memory, a 
short description of the superficial arteries of the head. We will 
begin with the external carotid, branch off toward the nose and 
mouth with the facial, the coronary, the nasal, transverse 
facial, orbital, supraorbital, temporal, frontal branch, parietal 
branch, occipital, and posterior auricular. With the image of 
the superficial arteries of the head in your mind's eye, you are 
prepared to reason that the drainage of the head through the 
veins must be normal, or diseases of the head and face will be 
the result, and will show their effects upon the outer surface and 
all through the skin, extending down to the fascia, the lym- 
phatics, the parotid glands, and other important structures of 
the head and face. We must have good and unobstructed action 
of the nerves of the head and face, because much depends upon 
their combined action. These nerves are the posterior auricular, 
auriculo-temporal, supraorbital, buccal, malar, nasal, supra- 
trochlear, infratrochlear, infraorbital, and supramandibular. 
I think by this timed have given enough of the important nerves 
so that, without any other assistance, you can safely proceed with 
the management of erysipelas in all parts of the head and face. 
You will see, if you reason at all, that by constriction of the 
muscles and membranes around the blood-vessels we have a 
stoppage or almost a complete inhibition of the blood while in 
transit from the head to the heart. You will remember that the 
system of constriction is very extensive in the region of the up- 
per part of the neck, at its junction with the head. Irritation 
from the constricture causes extensive congestion of the internal 
systems of arterial and venous circulation as well as of the ex- 



HEAD, PACK, AND SCALP. 8 1 

ternal. Let me point your attention to the lungs, with their 
increased motion in breathing. Has not this constricture 
extended to the lungs by the irritation of the pneumogastric 
nerves in the region of the neck as they pass from the brain 
to the lungs ? Surely, with constricture of ascending arteries 3 
there is a demand for greater arterial force, and we find the 
effect we call "a hard and quick pulse," which is known to 
accompany erysipelas of the head and face. 

Treatment op Erysipelas. 

We will now take up the treatment of erysipelas ; but just 
before entering into the discussion of the. best method of treat- 
ing this disease and other diseases of the head, I will say that 
this is an effort on my part to teach the student how to concen- 
trate his mind on the subject of diseases presented for his skill, 
deliberation, and practice. I will define erysipelas by giving 
Gould 's definition : "Erysipelas. An acute infectious disease, 
due to the streptococcus erysipelatosus (which is probably iden- 
tical with the streptococcus pyogenes), and characterized by an 
inflammation of the skin and subcutaneous tissues. E., Facial, 
erysipelas of the face, the most common form. After an initial 
chill, the temperature rises very high. There may be vomiting 
and delirium, and the disease may rapidly spread over a great 
part of the body. The affected area is swollen, has a deep red 
color, an elevated margin, and itches. E. } Wandering, a form 
in which the erysipelatous process successively disappears from 
one part of the body to appear subsequently at another part.'' 

Before the student begins to treat erysipelas or any dis- 
ease of the head, I wish to tell just what I mean by "treatment." 
If I say to treat the cervical and facial nerves, I do not mean 
that you mu? + : uh the neck and hold down the muscles. I want 
you to adjust the bones of the neck and let blood flow to and 
feed the nerves and muscles of the neck and stop the constrict- 



82 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

ures that have been holding the blood in check until it has died 
for want of air. We know that in any case of erysipelas we have 
sour fluids, the effect of delay of blood while in the veins located 
in the affected area. This venous blood must be sent to heart 
and lungs for purification and renewal. The operator is sup- 
posed to come into this important battle, where local life is to 
be saved by increasing the vital force and supplying pure and 
healthy blood. He should halt and establish himself for obser- 
vation as a seeker of the cause of this local delay in circulation, 
venous or arterial, and in the nerve-action, because in these 
three are the powers to supply the vital fluids and remove the 
exhausted. Vital forces must have access to the veins and arte- 
ries going to and from this irritating overplus of blood, fluids, 
and gases that are occupying the spaces in the skin, membranes, 
lymphatics, fascia, superficial and deep, in the region of the face, 
mouth, tongue, tonsils, Eustachian tubes, nasal air-passages, 
and the glands of the upper part of the neck close to the skull, 
the scalp included. On the wisdom of his conclusions previous 
to action depends the good or bad results that he will produce 
in diminishing the deadly supply through wisdom, or increas- 
ing the same through ignorance or inability to reach the 
positive cause of the constricture that has shut down the win- 
dows, doors, or openings through which nerve-force comes from 
the spinal cord and other branches from the brain to the face, 
for the purpose of giving energy to the blood in either venous or 
arterial action. He must know that if a hardness of the fleshy 
substances in the locality is found, that a stricture is caused by 
the nerves of constriction, and that this constricture proves 
itself to be strong enough to restrain the passage of blood to and 
from the locality of the face in which this destructive fermenta- 
tion is doing its deadly work. The philosopher will seek the 
plexus of nerves which controls the blood- and nerve-supply 
and the drainage through the venous and excretory systems. He 



HEAD, FACE, AND SCALP. 83 

must remember that he is dealing with a spasmodic constricture 
of the muscles of the neck and face, and that this constricture 
forces bones together with such power as to draw muscles and 
fibers strong enough to force the upper bones of the neck so far 
to the right, left, front, or rear as to produce a damaging press- 
ure on the nerves as they issue from the brain and medulla, 
whose duty it is to keep the fluids of the face in harmonious action 
for all purposes. The student will find bones varying from the 
normal in position in every case of facial erysipelas, nasal 
erysipelas, or any part of the head. I say, and know it to be 
true, that he will find bony variations from the skull and atlas 
to the first dorsal, and often to the fourth dorsal in facial ery- 
sipelas and other diseases of the head. Your patient has fever 
and is very hot. The educated touch will teach you this with- 
out the use of a thermometer. At this point you need reason 
much more than thermal instruments. My question to you is 
not to know whether the temperature is a 100, 106, or 160. I 
want to drag both of your feet out of the ruts of allopathy, 
and place your hands upon the handle of the pump and get 
some water from the lymphatics, the cellular system of the 
lungs, or any other place in the human body, set the excre- 
tories all to work and put the fire out, like any sensible fire- 
man would do if a city block were on fire. Erysipelas is 
reasonably easily handled if seen and treated before the gan- 
grenous period or condition sets in, or inflammation has done 
its deadly work. The inquirer for information would naturally 
ask the question, ' ' Why do the osteopaths want the excretory 
system to throw water on the consuming fire?" Let me call 
your attention to the fact that you should know, as physiolog- 
ical reasoners, that phosphorus with oxygen and surface air, as- 
sisted by nerve- and blood-motion, aided by electricity, pro- 
duces a union between the oxygen and phosphorus, and the 
addition of nitrogen, which occupies much cellular space in the 



&4 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

body, produces the combustion known as fever heat, and that 
phosphorus ceases to unite with anything whilst submerged 
in water from secretory and excretory ducts of the system. 

We think erysipelas is simply an effect of fermentation of 
the blood and other fluids of the surface veins, fascia, and 
glands, large and small, of the face and neck. We can see by a 
very superficial examination the internal jugular, superior thy- 
roid, and anterior jugular, assisted by the external jugular, and 
furthermore assisted by the posterior auricular, occipital, tem- 
poral, facial, angular, and lingual veins. To continue with the 
description of the head, face, and neck, we will draw your atten- 
tion to the vena cava superior, the grand outlet, the brachio- 
cephalic, and external jugular, with all the blood-vessels drain- 
ing the face and neck and emptying into the vena cava superior, 
the process of the fluids in which must be undisturbed by any 
constriction of the muscles, fascia, or membrane, that would im- 
pede and suspend the return of venous blood before asphyxia 
and fermentation could possibly set up their destructive ac- 
tion. In presenting this short description of the rivers through 
which venous blood is conveyed to the heart, I think it not amiss 
to refresh your memory by drawing your attention to the sys- 
tem and situation of the arteries which are universally distrib- 
uted over the face, embracing the whole head, beginning with 
the external carotid, facial, transverse facial, coronary, nasal, 
orbital, temporal, parietal, occipital, posterior auricular, and in- 
ferior carotid. We present the arterial system of the supply, 
then the venous system of drainage, in order that by reasoning 
you may arrive at a conclusion that there can be no such thing 
as a healthy venous stagnation. We find a system of maltage 
in which the alcohol of decomposition does its work in erysipe- 
las from start to finish. This process goes on and on poisoning 
the blood with its deadly yeast until the whole lump is in fer- 
mentation. A simple question seems to be in place at this time. 



HEAD, FACE, AND SCALP. 85 

If a man will die by means of poisonous medicines administered 
by way of his mouth, will he not also die from poisons generated 
in his own system by the law of fermentation and decomposition? 
It is thus that we reason of the death of a part or of the whole 
body. This poison has come through the self -generated fluids, 
which are poisonous and are absorbed in quantities sufficient to 
produce death to the part affected. It may embrace the whole 
system. Is it not reasonable to suppose that all the nerve-forces 
of Nature found in man will come forward in great haste and 
combine all their forces to discharge this deadly enemy? The 
heart labors with great force and rapidity. The lungs increase 
the process of breathing to many times the normal. The con- 
strictor nerves naturally come in to do their work as much as 
possible by a convulsive process of relieving the lymphatics of 
the face, head, and neck of unwholesome contents. If success- 
ful in this effort to disgorge, we have as a result a natural 
tendency to health and recovery. The human body will sicken 
and die from imperfect drainage just as certainly as the inhab- 
itants of a great city would become extinct by collapse or any 
method that would block the sewerage main, the vena cava of a 
great city. The more we know of perfect drainage of the human 
body, the more satisfactory will be results obtained by keeping 
up the natural drainage, which should be perfect at all times. 
As we have referred to the heart and lungs and to the import- 
ance of keeping them free from all obstructions, that they may 
do their work to the degree required of them by Nature, we must 
also by our reason embrace the importance of keeping the brain 
free from impingement by any stagnation in the face or neck 
that would diminish freedom of action to and from the brain, 
the known local center of nerve-action. Our success as osteo- 
paths in treating erysipelas depends altogether upon good 
nerve-action, blood-supply, and normal drainage. 



CHAPTER V. 



The Neck. 



Organized Substances of the Body. 

The organized substances in the human body, to the stu- 
dent of osteopathy, should be in divisions when he begins to 
philosophize as an operator. The organized substances of the 
body are the skin, fascia, membrane, muscle, ligament, bone, 
etc. All parts of the body when in form consist of the sub- 
stances above named. The student having passed through de- 
scriptive and demonstrative anatomy, histological, chemical, 
and physiological studies, will find all parts of the body, without 
an exception, to consist of bone, skin, fascia, membrane, cells, 
glands, brain, nerves, blood-vessels, etc. If health is perfect, 
it only proves perfect harmony in the physiological action of the 
body in all its parts and functions, "f Any variation from perfect 
health marks a degree of functional derangement in the physio- 
logical department of man. Efforts at restoration from the dis- 
eased to the healthy condition should present but one object to 
the mind, and that is to explore minutely and seek the variation 
from the normal. The first search for this knowledge would 
confine us to the bony system, in order to see if any lesion pre- 
sents itself by any abnormally large place or places. First 
examine the neck, because of its position and connection with 
the brain, which is the physiological source through which nerve- 
force is supplied and suited to the convenience of the heart, to 
assist in delivering such burdens as it may send forth to nour- 
ish and sustain the body. Every articulation of the neck should 



THE NECK. 87 

report itself to the skilled operator as absolutely normal.' He 
should remember that there are hundreds of ligaments in the 
neck, and that any strain or twist may produce an irritating 
tangle of nerves that should be wholly free to keep up the func- 
tional action of the glands that are so numerously distributed 
in the region of the neck, throat, and jaw. A scalenus, a sterno- 
mastoid, an omohyoid muscle may be irritated to contraction 
sufficient to disturb the nerves of the constrictor muscles, which, 
when tightened down upon the blood-channels and nerve- 
supply, would cause a dangerous constriction and stop blood 
and other fluids from passing to and from adjacent parts, to a 
degree of congestion followed by fermentation, which univer- 
sally attacks all stagnant fluids of the body. He who has edu- 
cated his eye and hand to carefully explore the neck and detect 
and adjust variations is the man who is armed and equipped to 
bring relief to the child or person suffering with throat or gland- 
ular diseases of the neck. Your knowledge of anatomy has 
taught you that the hard and soft parts of the neck were put 
there for a purpose, and must come up at all times and in every 
place to the plans and specifications of this great and important 
division of human health and happiness. It is your eye of rea- 
son and your finger of touch that I exhort to be instant in season 
and out of season. You must know what a neck is, with all its 
parts and responsibilities, or you will fail in proportion to your 
lack of knowledge, not theoretical, but practical, which you can 
only obtain by experience. 

Treatment of the Neck} 

One writer says that you must stimulate or inhibit the 
nerves here for lost voice and there for weak eyes, here for sore 
throat, and this set of nerves for coughs, that set for caked 
breasts, and so on. I wish to emphasize that when I say you must 
treat the neck for fits, sore throat, headache, dripping eyes, and 



88 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

so on through the whole list of troubles whose causes can be 
found in slips of bones of the neck between the skull and the 
first dorsal vertebra, I mean, if you know what a neck is, to treat 
that neck by putting each bone of the neck in place, from the 
atlas to the first dorsal, and go away. You have done the work 
and all the good you can do. Reaction and ease will follow just 
as sure as you have done your work right. Begin at the head 
and start at the first bone of the neck, and don't guess, but know 
that it fits to the skull properly above. Then see and know that 
it sets squarely on the second bone. Then go on to the third, 
fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh bone. Now go up that neck 
with your finger and push all the muscles of the neck into their 
places. Blood and nerves will do the rest of the work. Follow 
this course once or twice a week, and don't fool away any time 
fumbling to "stimulate and inhibit, ' ' 

The Arm. 
When he is brought face to face with the stern realities of 
the sick-room, the osteopath begins his inquiries and follows 
with his questions just far enough to know what division of the 
body is in trouble. If he finds that an arm has lost motion, he 
goes to the arm to explore for the cause. He can begin his hunt 
for the cause at the hand and explore it carefully for wounds, 
strains, or any lesion that could injure the nerves of the arm. 
If he finds no probable cause there, he should explore the bones 
for dislocations or strains of ligaments at the elbow or wrist. If 
he finds no defect in these articulations sufficient to locate the 
cause, he has only two more places to inspect — the shoulder and 
the neck, with their articulations of bones and muscles. If you 
find all things normal at the shoulder, then go to the neck, from 
which all the nerves of the arm are derived. If you find no 
lesion or cause equal to the trouble so far, then you have been 
careless in your search, and should go over the work again. Care- 



THE NECK. 89 

fully look, think, feel, and know that the head of the humerus 
is true in the glenoid cavity ; that the clavicle is perfect at both 
ends of its articulation with the sternum and acromion process. 
See that the biceps is in its groove ; that the ribs are true at the 
sternum and the spine ; that the neck is true on the first dorsal. 
Everything must be true in all joints of the neck, as the nerves of 
the arm come from the neck. There can be no variation from 
the normal, or trouble will appear. As the neck has much to 
do with the arm, we should keep with us a living picture of the 
forms of each vertebra, how and where it articulates with others, 
how it is joined by ligaments, and what blood-vessels, nerves, 
and muscles cross or range with it lengthwise, because from 
overlooking a small nerve or blood-vessel you may fail in re- 
moving a goitre or in curing many of the diseases of the head, 
face, and neck. 

Structure: of the Neck. 

Previous to entering upon the discussion of croup, diph- 
theria, tonsillitis, pneumonia, spasms, inflammation of the brain, 
and other diseases peculiar to children of a few months or years 
of age, I would think it wholly useless without impressing again 
upon your minds the importance of a thorough knowledge of 
anatomy. When a child dies by disease, he dies all over. The 
limit of the ravages of the disease can only be described by the 
anatomy of the whole human body, with its physiological and 
anatomical systems of blood, both to and from the heart, as di- 
rected by such vessels and delivered by the forces of the nerves. 
To-day our most eminent authors who have written on such 
subjects have sent us into the field of action wholly incompetent 
to combat the enemy successfully. At this point of the discus- 
sion allow me to call your attention to the fact that the cause of 
disease has been for all ages a silent mystery, lying in ambush 
and shooting its smokeless powder, and with its deadly bullets 



90 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

slaying its countless millions. No author whom I have ever 
consulted has intimated that the cause of such diseases had 
planted its battery and skirmishers to do their destructive 
work in the nerves of the pelvis. Let us reason from our knowl- 
edge of anatomy, giving special attention to the spinal cord 
from the occiput to the coccyx, with the many nerves that 
branch off from the cord to all divisions of the body, to construct, 
nourish, and move the whole machinery of life, as found in the 
human body by anatomical and physiological research. Like 
the sensitive plant, these nerves cause the machinery of life to 
dilate when it receives its nourishment, and contract just as 
surely when assailed by enemies that would inflict injury. Care- 
fully follow me to about the tenth dorsal vertebra, at which 
point you will see the beginning of the cauda equina, with its 
legions of nerves, which I am satisfied have secrets in their 
bosoms not yet unfolded. As they approach the lumbar, the 
pelvis, and the coccyx, and line themselves up for roll-call, we 
find them to be that innumerable host that no man has ever 
been able to number. Let me ask a few questions: Is it not 
plainly probable that this is the great quartermaster on whom 
every soldier of human life depends? Does not the mother give 
life and form by the constructive labors of this uncounted host ? 
If this division of the body be as valuable to the human life as 
indicated by its system of telephoning that is hinted at by Na- 
ture when she has unfolded her great bunch of wires that are to 
converse with all parts of the body, we are led not only to think, 
but to know, that the language is positive, that this is the sys- 
tem of telegraphy, and that those wires conducted from the 
main branch, off at a few local stations until they get to that 
great city of life that is situated below the tenth dorsal. This 
system of wires or nerves is liable to be torn down, as are the 
telegraph and telephone wires of St. Louis, New York, or any 
other city, by sleet, wind, and storm. We see how completely 



THE NECK. 91 

all parts of the body are supplied with nerves for all purposes. 
Would it not be folly to try to treat local effects when the wisest 
author 's eye has never seen any farther than the effects of which 
he tells you? Diphtheria affects the upper systems of glands 
even to death. The disease also destroys nerves of motion and 
sensation, of voice and swallowing, and even causes partial and 
total paralysis and death. Many kinds and quantities of drugs 
have been used, only to be baffled by the disease, of whose mys- 
terious cause nothing is known. Authors tell us that while 
diphtheria does its deadly work in the glandular system, croup 
does its deadly work in the surface membranes of the trachea 
and lungs, but is just as fatal. They leave the cause, and pre- 
scribe calomel, whisky, opium, emetics, and chloroform, and 
prepare for tracheotomy and the death of the babe or child of 
three or five summers. 

Croup, Diphtheria, Tonsillitis. 

If we reason on any subject, we can offer only one cause for 
such mental effort; i. e. } conviction in the mind of the person 
who thinks and speaks has grown to the conclusion that the 
truth pertaining to the subject has not been unfolded with that 
degree of wisdom that it should be. As a child, I was taught 
that the difference between a doctor of law and a doctor of med- 
icine existed in the fact that the doctor of law reasoned from 
cause to effect, while the doctor of medicine reasoned from ef- 
fect to cause. The lawyer seeks evidence or testimony of truths 
with the expectation of a favorable verdict, and on this founda- 
tion he proceeds in all cases. If he has presented the whole 
truth and nothing but the truth before a just and competent 
jury, he has no fear of the result. Still he knows that both 
ignorance and dishonesty may exist with bench or with jury. 
Thus ends the story of the doctor of common law. Having pre- 
sented the condition of the lawyer as we understand it, we will try 



92 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

just as honestly to present the condition of the doctor of medi- 
cine, or, in other words, the lawyer who deals with physiolog- 
ical laws. From the day he enters this great field of usefulness 
to the end of his career as a physician, he finds himself con- 
fronted with the effects of hidden causes, which are far back in 
the dark fogs of mystery. He knows that much depends on his 
diagnosis, which, being translated, means to guess from the effect 
to the cause that has produced the effect. His experience is 
very short before he discovers that nothing pleasant or unpleas- 
ant can exist without a cause. He reasons that darkness is an 
effect, caused by the absence of light ; that when the earth be- 
comes wet, it is an effect of falling water ; therefore, a pain in any 
part of the body has a cause, notwithstading its mysterious 
workings. He has reason to believe that the cause exists in 
brain, blood, nerve, electric, or magnetic confusion in the 
physiological action of the machinery which sustains animal 
life. 

At this point we will take up croup for discussion. We 
will commence our method of reasoning by setting out with 
an apple that falls to the ground from its mother tree, and 
receives a bruise which destroys the healthy condition of a 
small spot on the surface by that concussion, which soon pro- 
ceeds to a destructive condition known as fermentation, or rot, 
and continues to the destruction of the whole apple, which dies 
undoubtedly from the diffusion of its own dead blood. It is evi- 
dent to any observer that in the fall the apple received a dead- 
ly wound, that an inflammatory action followed and the fever 
or fermentation became general, and the apple died because of 
diffusion of deadly fluids to all parts of the body of the apple, 
even to death. You see that from the first small bruise it was 
natural with the apple and its qualities, when this chemical lab- 
oratory was put in motion by the active laws of fermentation, 
to go on and on to the destruction of the last vital drop of fluid. 



THE NECK. 93 

I think you fully understand by this time that something else 
is expected to be illustrated by the apple. We will bring in the 
child of a few summers from the mother 's breast and set it down 
with the pelvic, gluteal, and lower spinal nerves on the cold 
ground, which is electro-magnetic without a doubt, but just as 
reliable in its effects and as mysterious in its methods of pro- 
cedure in producing a deadly shock upon the pudic and lower 
spinal nerves and starting it on its deadly work as the law 
that governs the apple. Thus we bruise or chill the nerves of 
the rectum, because it is the nature of cold to contract tissues. 
We will proceed from the plexuses there and journey upward, 
to observe the powerful action these nerves exercise over 
membranes, ligaments, and fibers. A powerful shock surely is 
received by the fascia, with its cellular and lymphatic systems, 
which extend to every muscle. It is the fascia that I am speak- 
ing of now, and I want you to hold it in your memory because 
of its universality through the whole human body. The fas- 
cia has much to do in feeding its own and other nerves, even 
on to the spinal cord, which is the one great conductor from the 
brain. The nerves which the spinal cord throws off, be they 
sensory, motor, or nutrient, their harmony must not be tam- 
pered with any more than that of the apple. By an irritation 
of those nerves you are warned to look for danger. The con- 
strictor nerves, that have already produced constriction at the 
buttock, are as sure to reach the lungs, with their overpowering 
quantities of albumin, fibrin, and asphyxiated blood from the 
lymphatics and the whole cellular system, as the shock or bruise 
is certain to extend to and cause constriction of the kidneys 
and leave them in a spasmodic condition, during which time 
they cease to receive and excrete all substances not healthy 
in the territory they should drain. So far we find constriction 
of bowels, bladder, and all membranes and muscles of the abdo- 
men and all its organs. In croup we find both kidneys drawn 



94 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

convulsively together, forming a pyramid over the aorta, vena 
cava, and thoracic duct. We find the buttock of the child ex- 
tremely cold, with no arterial action below the crus. On exam- 
ination, we find the diaphragm constricted, rigid, and tight. 
We find the diaphragm almost inactive during spasmodic 
croup. Here I think I am warranted in saying that the spas- 
modic action beginning at the buttock and extending to the dia- 
phragm has been presented plainly enough so that you can fully 
comprehend what I think is the initial cause of croup. A shock 
to the nerves of the cellular system and their contents when un- 
loaded and carried to the lungs becomes deadly from the fact of 
the resistance the blood receives at the diaphragm. The deposits 
called membranous deposits are exuded matter from the cellu- 
lar system to the mucous membrane of the trachea and lungs, 
with their appendages. 

Diphtheria. 

"Our doctor said the child died from the effects of diph- 
theria, which ran into malignant sore throat and tonsillitis of 
gangrenous nature. Our doctor is a mighty good man. He 
did all he could for sister. He said he wanted to save sister, and, 
in consultation with two doctors that he had summoned from 
Boston and New York, he did all he could to save her life. They 
used all remedies, new and old. They swabbed her throat with 
caustics and used the most powerful throat-washes known in 
Europe and America. They exhausted all the simple family 
remedies, and even put a tube in sister's windpipe to let the air 
into the lungs, but she died in spite of all that could be done. ' ' 

The girl is dead. The disease was called diphtheria, a very 
dangerous and contagious disease. It was reported to the 
board of health, who ordered out flags as a warning for others 
to keep out. This has been the practice and treatment in these 
cases for lo these many years. Who has ever questioned our 



THE NECK. 95 

sages and our systems of reason and treatment in colds and dis- 
eases of the throat, tonsils, and glands of the neck and their 
passages ? "-Did we ever halt and reason that the white patches 
found in the mouth and throat were put there to guard the parts 
against coming injuries that hurried breathing, cold air, food, 
and drink might produce? Did we ever ask why God put such 
a covering over these exposed surfaces ? When we remove these 
natural guards to life, have we not flatly disputed the wisdom 
of Nature ? If we remove them and say we do no harm, would 
we not, under such a rule of reasoning, be just as wise in removing 
the bark from our fruit-trees, expecting the trees to do better 
without the bark than to let it stay where Nature put it until 
the tree grew its wood and fruit and dropped its old bark, 
when it had made new and was prepared to part with the old 
that was of no further use to the life of the tree? Would it not 
be wisdom for a few times in our practice among sore throats to 
let the bark stay where Nature had placed it until it had done 
the work for which it had been formed? 

A word from long experience in diseases of the mouth, 
throat, and neck of the young. We have given much more 
faith to local symptoms and local treatments than we should. 
The best we can say of such is that it leads us into a system of 
routine work, which is followed by the school the doctor of med- 
icine hails from/ Forty years ago I began to let throats alone, 
by keeping all kinds of washes out of sore throats. For sore 
spots I gave the baby, boy or girl, starch gruel, the white of an 
egg } gum Arabic, or some pasty drink to cover the sore spots. 
Give such often until soreness leaves the throat. 

I am proud to report that I have lost no case of croup, sore 
throat, tonsillitis, or diphtheria since I quit the unphilosoph- 
ical practice of washing and swabbing children's throats, which 
I think kills 75 percent of the cases that have died from infan- 
tile throat troubles. Give your patients sensible osteopathic 



96 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

treatment, and keep washes out ; give them plenty of gruel to 
eat and cover the sore spots, and you will have but few dead 
babies, if any, out of your list of throat diseases among children. 

In talking on diphtheria and other throat diseases to the 
students of my school, I do so with the knowledge that I am 
before men and women of intelligence, who are well read in 
the very best of American literature, which is equal to the very 
best of the most advanced nations of the earth. I know, too, 
that you did not come here for any foolishness or child's play, at 
a heavy loss of time and money. You came to this military 
school for drill, that you could be better prepared to combat 
with the great army of diseases that is dealing death by the 
millions annually to the human race all over the earth. I know 
you mean business, and I propose to talk business to you dur- 
ing your sojourn with us. 

Our medical doctors are men of our race, and they have 
bravely fought for the lives of our children. They have used 
the best weapons they could plan and build. They have failed 
to batter down and take the forts of the enemy. The enemy 
has guns and ammunition of better strength and longer range. 
The enemy has made the most skilled generals of medicine run 
up the white flag of surrender and the blue flags of danger, which 
warn others to keep out of range of diphtheria, smallpox, and 
so on to the full list of contagions and infections. 

Who has ever run up a white flag except the man who real- 
ized that he had no power to resist longer, nor hope of victory? 
What has the doctor done but multiply his drugs and chronicle 
defeat? He knows and says that drugs are strong compounds, 
of which he is just as ignorant as a bootjack. Like a rhinoceros, 
he sees and fights only the smoke of the gun that throws the 
deadly bullets that tear asunder his frame and let the life out. 
The medical man ends with his little book on symptomatology, 
and doses and kills babies just as fast now as at any time for a 



THE nEck. 97 

thousand years. He knows his practice is not trustworthy. 
He cuts and tries, and does not know whether the tree will do 
better or worse if he skins the bark off the babies' throats. He 
swabs, and daubs, and tries to keep up with the last antitoxin 
fad, and then turns the dead baby over to the deacon who levels 
all babies for heaven, and tells us, "The Lord giveth, and the 
Lord taketh." Then the hunter sets out on a hunt for more 
quail. He shoots on the wing only, but he gets a heap of quail, 
and asks all legislatures to give hirn a good quail law and keep 
out all hunters but him and his kind. 

Croup, diphtheria, tonsillitis, and kindred diseases of the 
neck, throat, and lungs that appear with the quick changes of 
weather in fall and winter, should be well reasoned upon by the 
osteopath before he begins his treatment. He finds, when called 
to treat a sore and swelled tonsil, in some a croupy cough, fever 
on face, head, and breast ; but he will find the baby's hips, and in 
fact the whole body, with the usual flatness lost, and round from 
the base of the skull to the pelvic bottom. We run to our little 
book of symptomatology, and find we have what is called croup, 
diphtheria, tonsillitis, and so on. Here we ask no more ques- 
tions, but begin to dose, drop, cut the throat, and send for more 
doctors and the latest antitoxin or the last fad that we have read 
in some journal. The babe dies. A next comes, to run the 
same gauntlet that many have tried, failed, and died in. 

y Treatment of Diphtheria. 
With a knowledge of the beginning of these diseases, the op- 
erator has but few points to observe, and they are physiological 
facts of functioning and mechanical skill. Thus armed, we will 
find diphtheria to be the effect of cold acting on constrictor mus- 
cles of the neck by irritation of constricted nerves, by atmos- 
pheric changes from hot to cold. Such changes appear at all 
times of the year, but are more common in the fall and winter. 



98 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

Much ignorance prevails as to its contagious nature. No known 
cause for its appearance has been found that is not in doubt. I 
think that troubles that appear to be contagious in times of their 
prevalence are called so on opinions formed on quantity more 
than on any known facts as to their infectious nature. The chil- 
dren of one family may take diphtheria and die, and all their 
school- and play-mates visit at all times during the worst stages 
to the hour of death, and not a single one takes the disease, or sore 
throat, or anything like it. It appears as a cold and does its 
work as a cold. It confounds the harmony of the nervous sys- 
tem. It acts as a wound or a shock to the vaso-dilators, caus- 
ing them to give way to the constrictor nerves and stop the mo- 
tion of the lymph in the lymphatic vessels long enough to fer- 
ment, heat up and dry the lymph of the epithelial and adipose 
tissues and cellular membrane of the tonsils, trachea, and all 
air-passages, tubes, and cells of the lungs, till by inflammation 
the mucous membrane is sloughed off, with such deposits as ac- 
cumulate in the mouth, throat, and trachea. If there is any 
truth in the theory that bacteria of the same kind and form are 
found in all places of diphtheria, I would suggest inquiring into 
the health of the cow's udder from which the milk is taken 
that the children have been drinking. Perhaps that cow has 
but three teats that give "sound" milk, and the other gives 
lumpy or bloody milk from an ulcer, cancer, or tubercular bag. 
I fear that the bacteria are swallowed in diseased milk. 

Whooping-Cough. 
I have perused all the authorities obtainable, and have ad- 
vised and counseled with them for information in reference to 
the cause of whooping-cough until I am constrained to think, 
whether I say so or not, that I have had many additions of words 
during the conversation, and, to use a homely phrase, less sense 
than I started out with. My tongue is tired, my brain exhausted, 



THB NECK. 99 

my hopes disappointed, and my mind disgusted, that after all 
this effort to obtain some positive knowledge of whooping- 
cough, I have received nothing that would give me any light 
whatever, pertaining to the subject. The writers wind up^thus : 
that it may be due to a germ that irritates the pneumogastric 
nerve. I go off as blank and empty as the fish lakes on the moon. 
I supposed that the writers would say something in reference to 
the irritating influence of this disease on the nerves that would 
contract or convulsively shorten the muscles that attach at the 
one end to the os hyoid, and at the other end at various points 
along the neck, and force the hyoid back against the pneumo- 
gastric nerve, hypoglossal, cervical, or some other nerve that 
would be irritated by the pressure. 

The above picture will give the reader some idea why I be- 
came so thoroughly disgusted with the heaps of compiled trash. 
I say "trash," because there was not a single truth, great or small, 
to guide me in search of the desired knowledge. And at this point 
I will say, on my first independent exploration I found all of the 
nerves and muscles that are attached to the os hyoid contracted, 
shortened, and pulling the hyoid back, bringing pressure against 
the pneumogastric nerve and all the nerves in that vicinity. 
Every muscle was in a hard and contracted condition in the re- 
gion of this portion of the trachea, and extending up and into the 
back part of the tongue. Then I satisfied myself that this irrita- 
ble condition of the muscles was possibly the cause of the spasms 
of the trachea during the convulsive cough. I proceeded at once 
with my hand, guided by my judgment, to suspend or stop for 
awhile the action of the nerves of sensation that go with and con- 
trol the muscles of the machinery which conducts air to and 
from the lungs. My first effort, while acting upon this philoso- 
phy, was a complete relaxation of all muscles and fibers of that 
part of the neck, and when they relaxed their hold upon the 
respiratory machinery, the breathing became normal. I have 

LofC. 



IOO PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

been asked, "What bone would you pull when treating whoop- 
ing-cough?" My answer would be: "The bones that hold by 
attachment the muscles of the hyoid system in such irritable 
condition, beginning with the atlas and terminating with the 
sacrum." To him who has been a faithful student in the Amer- 
ican School of Osteopathy, the successful management of whoop- 
ing-cough should be reliable and successful in all cases, when 
the case is received for treatment in anything like a reason- 
able time. 

Before we leave that wisely constructed neck, I want to 
press and imprint on your minds in the strongest terms that the 
wisest anatomist and physiologist, the oldest and most success- 
ful osteopath, knows only enough of the neck and its wondrous 
system of nerves, blood, and muscles, and its relation to all 
above and below it, to say, "From everlasting to everlasting, 
Thou art great, O Lord God Almighty ! Thy wisdom is surely 
boundless. ' ' For we see that man must be wise to know all 
about the neck, for by a twist of that neck we may become blind, 
deaf, spasmodic, lose speech and memory, and many other ills 
befall us. Think for a moment of the thousands and tens of 
thousands of large and small vessels that pass through the neck, 
to and from the heart and brain, to every organ, bone, fiber, 
muscle, and gland in the body. 



CHAPTER VI. 



The Thorax. 

Inhibition and Stimulation. 

When we use the terms "inhibition" and "stimulation," 
we mean to cut off or to excite to greater activity blood or any 
fluids, magnetic, electric, or life forces. One has said, "Life is 
that calm force sent forth by Deity to vivify all nature. ' ' Let 
us accept and act on it as true, that life is that force sent forth 
by the Mind of the universe to move all nature, and apply all 
our energies to keep that living force at peace, by retaining 
the house of life in good form from foundation to dome. Let 
us read a few lines in the book of Nature. If we stop blood 
in transit and note a few changes that Nature's chemistry 
takes on to remove dead blood, that has died because of delay in 
veins and arteries, we will note that if blood fails to pass a point 
owing to an obstructing cause, the lungs begin to labor, taking 
in much more than the usual amount of air. This fills the chest 
so full that the blood is forced into the arterial system for a short 
time by the force of all five lobes of the lung. At this time but 
little blood is left in the chest, because the air in the lungs is so 
great in bulk that to make room for that bulk the blood had to 
be pushed from the chest to other places. Now you see blood 
forced from chest to arteries by atmospheric pressure, which 
fills all space in the chest ; but as soon as the air is taken out of 
the chest, a vacuum is made, large enough to hold three quarts 
of blood which has been detained by stop-valves in the veins 
and kept back and out of the chest until the air is forced out by 



102 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

exhalation; then the blood rushes in from the whole venous 
system, by force of contraction of the flesh of the whole body, 
which drives the venous blood back to the heart. Thus we see 
atmospheric pressure acting on arteries. The air is in the lungs, 
and forces blood from the heart by inside pressure of the atmos- 
phere ; then we see venous blood forced back to the heart through 
the veins by outside atmospheric pressure, fourteen pounds to 
the square inch of skin surface. The body during animal life has 
internal and external atmospheric pressure to assist arterial 
and venous circulation. 

Lungs — Place, Power, and Use. 
We see, when we open the chest, that the lungs are centrally 
situated in the chest and directly behind the heart. We find 
them located at a place where they change form by inhaling air, 
which change calls for over two hundred cubic inches of space, 
which can only be prepared for by removals. If we look and rea- 
son, we will conclude that as the ribs are moved outwardly from 
the heart, the diaphragm downward and the abdomen filling out 
and down, there is some power making this pressure. This is 
evident to him who reasons at all. Then he is ready to htmt 
and locate the cause. He has only to consult his own power of 
reason, aided by his observation, to learn that the inner side of 
the chest is the location and the lung is the organ that wedges 
out ribs, blood, and flesh while in distention. One thought of 
the power of atmospheric pressure will start reason in motion, 
and we will see that atmospheric pressure is one of the most 
important powers that any philosopher can conceive of, for 
pressing the blood forward from the heart through the arterial 
distribution; then again, as the air leaves the chest a vacuum 
is made and venous blood naturally comes to the lungs to be 
purified, and when purified, the next breath filling up the 
chest, it is naturally forced to the heart, to have this newly 
prepared blood conveyed to its destiny. 



TH£ thorax. 103 

Here I will insert all I have to say of lung diseases. By 
some force the lungs open and fill to the full capacity of the 
chest. How the lungs are filled is not of so much importance to 
an osteopath as to know that they do fill the chest so full that it 
pushes blood, ribs, and flesh off to make room for themselves. 
That is one of Nature 's methods for keeping blood in motion, 
both by pressure while filling the lungs and by forming a vacuum 
when letting air escape from the lungs. We find a great power 
and use in the pressure of the lungs when filling, on arterial blood 
to drive it through the system, and a vacuum to receive venous 
blood when air escapes, that has been held in the veins by 
valves which keep blood from being pushed back while the 
artery is being aided by pressure to supply all parts of the 
system. 

The lungs open and shut; they swell and shrink. They 
open to take in air and also hold the air for a short period. They 
run by involuntary action. When they fill with air, they take 
up from one hundred to two hundred and forty cubic inches of 
space in the chest, and to get that space blood must be removed, 
ribs must be pushed out, diaphragm down; that coming bulk 
has to be hauled into the chest by the ability of the cups or cells 
to drink, swallow, or suck in the air. So far the "how ' ' is but lit- 
tle understood. Still, it goes in and out of the lungs. Authors 
try to tell of muscle, bone, and other aids and "hows." We 
read much, but know little when we read from twenty to a hun- 
dred pages on lung-action by this and that author, for they give 
no real and positive light on their use and power. What I want 
to say is in reference to the power of the lungs when filling or 
full. There is pressure, power, and force that does, can, and 
will wedge, push, or force blood and other substances out of the 
way as the lungs expand to the full size of all the space allotted 
them in the pleural cavity. We soon see, if we observe at all, 
that pressure will assist in driving the blood through the arterial 



104 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

system as it leaves the heart. We find the veins, both great 
and small, provided with two-stop valves, which prevent the 
blood from falling back when on its course to the heart. No 
amount of pressure, short of rupture, can cause the blood to re- 
turn from whence it came. But as soon as the pressure is taken 
off the veins of the lungs, the blood naturally flows or pours into 
the heart. We look upon this as the provision by which the 
arterial flow is assisted by lung-pressure and the venous flow 
checked until the arterial system has supplied all demands upon 
the surface. Then the pressure eases up and the blood naturally 
flows to the heart for the next process of distribution to the lungs, 
to receive such chemical substances as are necessary to purify 
and qualify the blood to be returned to the heart for universal 
distribution. Thus we see not only the chemical use of the 
lungs, but by them the blood receives assisting pressure and acts 
by that pressure to keep the blood and other substances in per- 
petual motion. 

A question like this would be quite natural to the student : 
If blood is driven by lung-force, how does it move in f cetal life 
before the lung is formed ? A good answer to that would be, 
that in foetal life the mother 's lungs give purity to the child 's 
blood, and her arterial force takes the place of after-birth action 
and force demanded previous to birth. Thus we see Nature 
has filled all demands in animal life. 

Following this lengthy description of the form and location 
of the lungs, we have your mind in a prepared condition to take 
up lung diseases, to lead you to the causes of the effects better 
known as diseases of the lungs. 

Pneumonia. 

Under this familiar name or title we will say to the inex- 
perienced student that in changes of atmospheric conditions 
the lungs receive shocks which wound or disturb the natural 



The thorax. 105 

harmony of lung-action by irritating the nerve-terminals as 
they appear in the mucous membrane of the lungs. This irri- 
tation after a time produces constriction of fibers, tissues, and 
muscles of the lungs, so as to prohibit freedom in the passage 
of the blood while in the venous system to such a degree as to 
suspend atmospheric assimilation long enough to produce as- 
phyxia and death of blood-corpuscles and other substances that 
may be or should be in action in a healthy condition of the lungs. 
We find stagnation, stoppage, accumulation, and congestion to 
the degree of irritability of a part or whole of the lungs. Now 
we have a condition of inactive fluids deposited in some part 
of one or all five divisions of the lungs, which take on themselves 
the first step of fermentation. This is followed by another ac- 
tion caused and known as inflammation, which brings in the 
higher and more active forces, which produce an increase in 
temperature to the degree known as fever, which may be many 
degrees hotter than the normal temperature of the body. We 
may have what is well known as pneumonia or lung fever, which 
passes on in quick succession to other stages, such as coughing 
up blood for a day or a longer period, until this increased tem- 
perature and augmented action have changed the dead blood 
into gaseous fluids and thrown them off from and out of the 
lungs. With the change from coughing up of blood we have 
healthy and healing pus. 

We see in pneumonia a disease beginning in an irritation 
of the sensory nerves, and progressing from that, condition of 
irritation to congestion, inflammation, recovery, or death. 

Consumption. 

I have not written much on "Consumption," because I 

wanted to test my conclusions by long and careful observations 

on cases that I have taken and successfully treated without 

drugs. I kept the results from public print until I could ob- 



106 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

tain positive proof that consumption can be cured. So far the 
discovered causes give me little doubt, and the cures are a cer- 
tainty in very many cases. An early beginning is one of the 
great considerations in incipient consumption. 

I believe so many deaths by consumption will soon be with 
the things of the past, if the cases are taken early and handled 
by a skilled mind, one trained for that responsible place. That 
mind must be taught this as a special branch. It is too deep 
for superficial knowledge or imperfect work. Life is in danger, 
and can be saved by skill, not by force and ignorance. He who 
sees only the dollar in the lung is not the man to trust with your 
case. 

It is such men as have the ability to think, and the skill to 
comprehend and execute the application of Nature's unerring 
laws, that obtain the results required. We believe the day has 
come, and long before noon the fear of consumption will greatly 
pass from the minds of people. We have long since known and 
proven that a cough is only an effect. If an effect, then a wise 
man will set his mental energy on the track to hunt the cause. 
He has all the evidence in the cough, location of pain, tenderness 
of spine and chest, and quality of the substances coughed up, to 
locate the cause, and to know, when he has found it, how to re- 
move it and give relief. It will grow more simple as he reasons 
and notes effect. We do not think that this result will be 
obtained every time by even an average mind, unless it has a 
special training for that purpose. The physician must not only 
know that the lungs are in the upper part of the chest, close to 
the heart, liver, and stomach, but he must know the relations all 
sustain to each other, and that the blood must be abundantly 
supplied to support and nourish the five sets of nerves — sen- 
sory, motor, nutrient, voluntary, and involunatary. If the 
supply should be diminished on the nutrient nerves, weakness 
would follow ; reduce the supply from the motor and it will have 



THE THORAX. I07 

the same effect. Motion becomes too feeble to carry blood to 
and from the lungs normally, and the blood becomes diseased 
and congested, because it is not passed on to other parts with 
the force necessary for the health of the lungs. 

At this time the nerves of sensation become irritated by 
pressure and lack of nutriment, and we cough, which is an ef- 
fort of Nature to unload the burden of oppression that con- 
gestion causes with the sensory nerves. If this be effect, 
then we must suffer and die, or remove the cause, put out the 
fire, and stop waste of life. Nature will do its work of repair- 
ing in due time. Let us reason by comparison. If we dislo- 
cate- a shoulder, fever and heat will follow. The same is true of 
all limbs and joints of the body. If any obstructing blood or 
other fluid should be deposited in quantities great enough to 
stop other fluids from passing on their way, Nature will fire up 
its engine to remove such deposits by converting fluids into gas. 
As heat and motion are important as remedies, we may expect 
fever and pain until Nature's furnace produces heat, forms and 
converts its fluids into gas and other deposits, and passes 
them through the excretories to space, and allows the body to 
work normally again. 

We believe consumption causes the death of thousands 
annually who might be saved. We must not let stupidity veil 
our reason, and we are to blame if we let so many run into 
"consumption" from a simple hard cough. The remedy is 
natural, and, we believe, from results already obtained, 75 per 
cent can be cured if taken in time. What we generally call 
"consumption" begins with a cough, chilly sensations, and lasts 
a day or two. Sometimes fever follows with a cough, either 
high or low. The cold generally relaxes in a few days, the lungs 
get "loose," and much sputa is raised for a period, but the cough 
appears again and again with all changes of weather, and lasts 
longer each time, until it becomes permanent. It is called "con- 



108 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

sumption," because of this continuance. Medicines are admin- 
istered freely and frequently, but the lungs grow worse, cough 
more continued and much harder, till finally blood begins to 
come from the lungs and there is a wasting of strength. A change 
of climate is suggested and taken, but with no change for the 
better. Another and another travels to death on the same line. 
Then the doctor in council reports "hereditary consumption," 
and with his decision all are satisfied, and each member of the 
family feels that a cold and cough means a coffin, because the 
doctor says the family has "hereditary consumption." This 
shade-tree has given comfort and contentment to the doctors of 
the past. 

If you have a tiresome and weakening cough at the close of 
the winter, and wish to be cured, we would advise you to begin 
osteopathic treatment at once, to enable the lungs to heal and 
harden against the next winter's attack. 

A Description op Consumption. 
For fear you do not understand what I mean by "consump- 
tion," I will write on a descriptive line quite pointedly. I will 
give the start and the progress to fully developed consumption. 
We often meet with cases of a permanent cough, with expecto- 
rations of long duration, dating back two, five, ten, even thirty 
years, to the time the patient had measles. The severity of the 
cough and strain had congested even the lung-substances, and 
a chronic inflammation was the result. If we analyze the sputa, 
we find fibrin and even lung-muscle. Does all this array of dan- 
gerous symptoms cause an osteopath to give up in despair? It 
should not ; on the other hand, he should go deeper on the hunt 
for the cause. He may find trouble in the fibers of the pneumo- 
gastric nerve. The atlas or hyoid, vertebra, rib, or clavicle may 
be pressing on some nerve that supplies the mucous membrane of 
air-cells or passages. If a cut foot will often produce lockjaw , 



THE THORAX. 109 

why will not a pressure on some center, branch, or nerve-fiber 
cause some division of the nerves of the lungs that govern 
venous circulation, to contract and hold blood indefinitely as an 
irritant, and cause perpetual coughing? 

This is not the time for the osteopath to run up the white 
flag of defeat and surrender. Open the doors of your purest 
reason, put on the belt of energy, and unload the sinking vessel 
of life. Throw overboard all dead weights from the fascia, and 
wake up the forces of the excretories. Let the nerves all show 
their powers to throw out every weight that would sink or re- 
duce the vital energies of Nature. Give them a chance to work, 
give them full nourishment, and the victory will be on the 
side of the intelligent engineer. Never surrender, but die in the 
last ditch. Let us enter the field of active exploration, and note 
the causes that would lead us to conclude we have the cause 
that produces "consumption," as it has ever been called. 

Begin at the brain, go down the ladder of observation, stop 
and whet your knives of sharp mental steel, get your nerves 
quiet by the opium of patience. Begin with the atlas, follow it 
with the searchlight of quickened reason, comb back your hair 
of mental strength, and never leave that bone until you have 
learned how many nerves pass through and around that wisely 
formed first part of the neck. Remember it was planned and 
builded by the mind and hand of the Infinite. See what nerve- 
fibers pass through and on to the base and center, and each 
minute cell, fascia, gland, and blood-vessel of the lungs. Do 
you not know that each nerve-fiber for its place is king and 
lord of all? 

The Effects of Consumption. 

I think consumption begins by closing the channels in the 
neck for the lymph, which stands as one of, if not the most high- 
ly refined elements in animal bodies. Its fineness would indi- 



IIO PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

cate that it is a substance that must be delivered in full supply 
continually to keep health normal. If so, we will, for experi- 
mental reasons, look at the neck ligated, as found in measles, 
croup, colds, and eruptive fevers. Supply is stopped from pass- 
ing below the atlas for three days. During such diseases fever 
runs high at this time and dries up the albumen, giving cause for 
tubercles, as fever has dried out the water and left the albumen 
in small deposits in the lungs, liver, kidneys, and bowels. If this 
view of the great uses of lymph is true as a cause of glandular 
growths and other dead deposits, have we not a cause for miliary 
tuberculosis? Have we not encouragement to prosecute with 
interest, in the hope of an answer to the question, "What is tu- 
berculosis?" Our writers are just as much at sea to-day as they 
were a thousand years ago. I will give the reader some of the 
reasons why I think the mischief was started while fluids were 
cut off by congestion of the neck. By the crudest method of rea- 
soning, we would conclude that from the form of the neck many 
objects are indicated, and the material of which it is composed 
would give reason to turn all its powers of thought, to ask why 
it is so formed as to twist, bend, straighten, stiffen, and relax 
at will, to suit so many purposes ? A very tough skin, a sheath, 
surrounds the neck with blood-vessels, nerves, muscles, bones, 
ligaments, fascia, glands, great and small, throat and trachea. 
In bones we find a great canal for the spinal cord. It is well and 
powerfully protected by a strong wall of bone, so no outer press- 
ure can obstruct the flow of passing fluids, to keep the vitality 
supplied by brain-forces ; but with all the protection given to 
the cord, we find that it can be overcome by impacted fluids to 
such a degree as to stop blood and other fluids from supplying 
the lungs and everything below. 

The Cause op Consumption. 
Consumption to an osteopath should be known as the grave- 
yard in which the dead have been sent from the hospitals of the 



THE THORAX. Ill 

physical forms of the body, and directly from the fascia of all. 
We reason, when the lungs throw off dead matter, that the blood- 
corpuscles have died in the hospitals of the fascia, omentum, 
and mesentery, and in proportion to the death of the corpuscles 
so is the supply of sputa deposited and coughed up, until the pu- 
trid bodies exceed both the able-bodied and the wounded ; then 
the vital powers yield in death to universal putrescence, a total 
collapse, or to the death of the man, and he is listed "died of pul- 
monary consumption. ' ' I hope that this method of reasoning 
to the student of osteopathy will enable him to reach further 
back into the cause that has produced the effect that has been 
so little understood, so deadly in its ravages and so extended in 
its field of destruction to the human family. At this time in our 
investigation we will ask the student to refresh his mind by 
reviewing his anatomy, looking very carefully to the nerve- and 
blood-supply, both superficial, deep-seated, and universal. 

Miliary Tuberculosis. 
"A tubercle is a separate body being enveloped." All de- 
scriptions of a tubercle amount to about this, that the tubercle is 
a quantity of fleshy substance, which may be albumen, fibrin, 
or any other substance collected and deposited at one place 
in the human body, and covered with a film composed gener- 
ally of fibrinous substances, and deposited in a spherical form 
and separated from all similarly formed spheres by fascia. They 
may be very numerous, for many hundreds may occupy one 
cubic inch, and yet each one is distinct. They seem to develop 
only where fascia is abundant, in the lungs, liver, bowels, and 
skin. After formation, they may exist and show nothing but 
roughened surfaces, and when the period of dissolution and the 
solvent powers of the chemical laboratory take possession to 
banish them from the system, the work of banishment gener- 
ally begins when some catarrhal disease is preying upon the 



112 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

human system. Nature seems to make its first effort at the 
catarrhal period for the purpose of disposing of such substan- 
ces as have accumulated. At that time it brings forward all 
the solvent qualities and applies them, with the assistance of 
the motor force, to driving out all irritating substances through 
the bowels, the lungs, and the porous and excretory system. 
Electricity is called in as the motor force to be used in expelling 
all unkindly substances. By this effort of Nature, which is an 
increased action of the motor nerves, electricity is brought to 
the degree of heat called fever, which, if better understood, we 
would possibly find to be the necessary heat of the furnace of 
the body to convert dead substances into gas, which can travel 
through the excretory system and be thrown from the body 
much easier than water, lymph, albumen, or fibrin. 

During this process of gas-burning, a very high tempera- 
ture is obtained by the increased action of the arterial system 
through the motor nerves, permeating the tubercles and caus- 
ing an inflammation by the gaseous disturbance so produced; 
another effort of Nature to convert those tubercles into gas and 
relieve the body of their presence and irritable occupancy. 

As an illustration, we will ask the reader if he could rea- 
sonably expect to pass a common towel through a pipestem? 
Nevertheless Nature can easily do it. Confine the towel in a 
cylinder and apply fire, which in time will convert the towel into 
gas or smoke, and enable it to pass through the stem. Is it not 
just as reasonable to suppose those high temperatures of the 
body are Nature's furnaces, making fires to burn out of those 
dead bodies, while passing them through the skin in order to 
get rid of these substances that are packed all through the hu- 
man fascia, and can only be passed from the body in a gaseous 
form. 

The blackened eye of the pugilist soon fires up its furnaces 
and proceeds to generate gas from the dead blood that surrounds 



THE THORAX. 113 

the eye. Though it may be in considerable quantities under 
the skin, the blood soon disappears, leaving the face and eye 
normal to all appearances. No pus has formed, nor deposit left ; 
fever disappears; the eye is well. What better effort could 
Nature offer than through its gas-generating furnace? I will 
leave any other method for you to discover. I know of none 
that my reason can grasp. 

When reason sees a white corpuscle in the fascia not taken 
up as a nutrient, it attaches itself to the fascia with all its uter- 
ine powers during the time of measles or other eruptive dis- 
eases, and soon takes form and is a vital and durable being 
whose name is "tubercle." All tubercles are unappropriated 
substances whom Mother Fascia has clothed and ordered in camp 
for treatment and repairs, and has placed on the list of enrolled 
pensioners, to draw on the treasury of the fascia until death 
shall discharge them. 

The mothers of the human race give birth to children from 
the time of their puberty to sterility. They may give birth a 
dozen times, but Nature finally calls a halt, and the whole sys- 
tem of life-sustaining nerves of the womb which are in the fas- 
cia, with blood in great abundance to supply fcetal life, ceases 
to go farther with the processes of building beings. Vitality for 
that purpose stops, never to return. Nature has no longer a 
demand for her system to act as a constructing cause for other 
beings of her kind, and she is free the remainder of her days. 

Variety of Births. 
A question arises, Are children the only beings she can de- 
velop in her system and give birth to ? No ; she can go through 
other processes of breeding. In her fascia there is one seed 
which, if vitalized, will develop a being called "measles." She 
never has but one confinement. That set of nerves that gave 
support and growth to measles died in the delivery of the child, 



114 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

and never can conceive and produce any more measles. An- 
other seed lives in her fascia waiting to be vitalized by the male 
principle of smallpox, and when it is born it always kills the 
nerves that gave it life and form. And the person never can 
have but one such child or being during life. Still another seed 
awaits the coming of the commissary to nourish while it con- 
sumes that vitality in the fascia of the glands to develop the 
portly child we call "mumps." Both male and female con- 
ceive and give birth to these beings, and then tear up the tracks 
and roads behind them, by killing the demand for such kinds. 

I want to draw the mind of the reader to the fact that no 
being can be formed without material, a place in which to be 
developed, and with all forces necessary for the work. And as 
all excrescences and abnormal growths, diseases, and condi- 
tions must have the friendly assistance of the fascia before de- 
velopment, the fascia is the place to look for the cause of dis- 
ease and the place to begin the action of remedies in all diseases. 

"We can arrive at truth only by the powerful rules of rea- 
son," the philosopher has shouted from the housetops during 
all these ages. He adjusts his many supposable causes, and 
adds to and subtracts from until he arrives at a conclusion 
based upon the facts of his observations. We must know the 
principles that exist in substances and seeds by which, when 
associated with proper conditions, that powerful engine known 
as "animal life" gives truth, with fact and motion as its vouch- 
er. We reason, if corn be planted in moist and warm earth, 
that action and growth will present the form of a living stalk of 
corn, which has existed in embryo, and still continues its vital 
actions as long as the proper conditions prevail, until the growth 
and development are completed. If you take a seed in your 
fingers, push it in the ground and cover it up, incubation, growth, 
and development is expected in obedience to the law under 
which it serves. Thus we see, in order to succeed, we must 



THE THORAX. 115 

deposit and cover up the seed, that the laws of gestation may- 
have an opportunity to get the results desired. As Nature al- 
ways presents itself to our minds as seeds deposited in proper 
soil and season, and it is loyal to its own laws only, we are con- 
strained by this method of reasoning to conclude that disease 
must have a soil in which to plant its seeds before gestation 
and development. It must have seasonable conditions, the 
rains of nourishment, also the necessary time required for such 
processes. All these laws must be fulfilled to the letter ; other- 
wise a failure is certain. As the great laboratory of Nature is 
always at work in the human body, the chilling winds and poi- 
sonous breaths, w T ith extremes of heat and cold at different sea- 
sons of the year by day and night, and the lungs and skin are 
continually secreting and excreting every minute, hour, and 
day of our lives, is it not resonable to suppose that we inhale 
many elements that are floating in the common winds that con- 
tain the seeds of some destructive element, to the harmony of 
fluids that are necessary to sustain the healthy animal forms ? 
Suppose it should start the yeast, or kind of substance that 
lives mainly upon lime. If this yeast, in its action and thirst 
for food to suit its life and appetite, should call in from the 
earth, water, and atmosphere for its daily food lime substances 
only, and by its power destroy all other principles taken as 
nourishment, is it not reasonable to suppose it would deposit 
such elements in overpowering quantities in the fascia of the 
mucous membrane of the lungs, so as to overcome the renovat- 
ing powers of the lungs and excretory system? This deposit 
acts as an irritant to the sensory nerves to such an extent that 
the electricity of the motor nerves is forced to take charge of 
and run the machinery of the human body, with a velocity 
sufficient to raise the temperature of the body, by putting the 
electricity above the normal action of animal life, and thereby 
generate that temperature known as fever. 



Il6 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

The two extremes, heat and cold, may be the causes of 
retention and detention. One is detained by the contraction 
of cold until the blood and other fluids die by asphyxia. The 
warm temperature produces relaxation of the nerves, blood, 
and all other vessels of the fascia, during which time the arteries 
are injecting too great quantities of fluids to be renovated 
by the excretory system. Then you have a cause for decom- 
position of the blood and other substances. You have a log- 
ical foundation and a cause for all diseases, catarrhal and cli- 
matic, contagions, infections, and epidemics. The fascia proves 
itself to be the probable matrix of life and death. When har- 
monious in normal action, health is good ; when perverted, dis- 
ease results. 

Lung Diseases. 

In America man has dreaded diseases of the lungs more 
than any other one disease. If we compare pulmonary dis- 
eases with other maladies, we find that more persons die of 
consumption, pneumonia, bronchitis, and nervous coughs than 
from smallpox, typhus and bilious fever, and all other fevers 
combined. Many diseases of contagious nature stay in the 
city or country or in an army but a short time ; they kill a 
few and disappear, and may not return for many years. This 
is the history of yellow fever, cholera, and other epidemics. 
They slay their hundreds, and cease as unceremoniously as 
they began. But when we think of diseases that begin to show 
their effects in tonsils, trachea, and lining membranes of the 
air-passages, we find we are in a boundless ocean. 

It takes no great mind to know from past observation 
that a common cold often holds on and settles down to chronic 
inflammation of the lungs, and the patient dies of consump- 
tion, croup, diphtheria, or tonsillitis. Catarrhal troubles stay 
and waste vitality by causing a failure in oxidation while in 



the thorax. 117 

the lungs. Diphtheria paves the way for the young and old 
to die of consumption. Vitiated air in dance-halls, opera-houses, 
churches, and school-houses never fails to inspect and deposit 
the seeds of consumption in weak lungs. 

As one delves deeper and deeper into the machinery and 
exacting laws of life, he beholds works and workings of con- 
tented laborers of all parts of one common whole, the great 
shafts and pillars of an engine working to the fullness of the 
meaning of perfection. He sees that great quartermaster, the 
heart, pouring in and loading train after train, and giving orders 
to the wagonmaster to line his teams and march on quick time 
to all divisions, supply all companies, squads, and sections with 
rations, clothing, ammunition, surgeons, splints, and bandages, 
and put all the dead and wounded into the ambulances to 
be repaired or buried with military honors by Captain Vein, 
who fearlessly penetrates the densest bones, muscles, and glands 
with the living waters to quench the thirst of the blue corpus- 
cles that are worn out by doing fatigue duty in the great combat 
between life and death. He often has to run his trains on forced 
marches to get supplies to sustain his men when they have had 
to contend with long sieges of heat and cold. Of all officers of 
life, none has greater duties to perform than the quartermaster 
of the blood-supply, who borrows from the brain, which gives 
motion to all parts of active life, the force with which he runs 
his deliveries. 

Found Effects. 

In all ages the mind and pen of man have been content to 
dwell and rest or agree that the lungs generate tubercles and 
other destructive substances; that a lung is an insane suicide; 
that it takes its own life. The doctor analyzes by his chemis- 
try the substances coughed up from the lungs. He takes the 
diseased lung to his microscope for physical examinations. 



Il8 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

He finds knots, lumps, and much variation from the normal 
lungs in cells, muscles, tissues, blood-vessels, and nerves, the 
sensory, motor, and nutrient. He finds great abnormalities in 
the form and fluids of the lungs, and drops further search. He 
has found the effects, and only charges all this bad work to the 
lungs. He knows he has found the guilty party, and proceeds 
to punish. He never asks why. He asks no question about 
the cause of the lungs giving way and failing to perform their 
function, nor does the thought occur to him that they must be 
helped by being nourished from the lymph prepared in the 
omentum, pleura, diaphragm, and the peritoneum generally. 
He has failed to ask why the lungs fail to be normal when the 
omentum is diseased. He seems to have totally failed to see 
that in all cases of diseased lungs no perfectly normal omentum 
can be found, or at least no treatise on lung diseases has even 
mentioned that the remote cause of consumption might be 
traced to the omentum, or failure in its functioning before dis- 
ease of the lung appeared. It seems to be due to osteopathy 
that the discovery has been made. In all post-mortems of 
people who have died from lung diseases and been examined at 
the American School of Osteopathy, the omentum has been 
found to be diseased, torn, wounded, cancerous, or disabled in 
such a manner that it was not possible to perform its functions. 
We have reason to believe that the lung dies or fails to do its 
part normally when the omentum is diseased. 

Digestion. 
In our physiologies we read much about digestion. We will 
start in where they stop. They bring us to the lungs with chyle 
fresh as made and placed in the thoracic duct, previous to flow- 
ing into the heart to be transferred to the lungs to be purified, 
charged with oxygen, and otherwise qualified, and sent off for 
duty, through the arteries, great and small, to the various parts 



THE THORAX. 11$ 

of the system. But there is nothing said of the time when all 
blood is gas, before it is taken up by the secretions, after refine- 
ment, and driven to the lungs to be mixed with the old blood 
from the venous system. A few questions about the blood seem 
to hang around my mental crib for food. Reason says we cannot 
use blood before it has all passed through the gaseous stage of 
refinement, which reduces all material to the lowest forms of 
atoms, before constructing any material body. I think it safe 
to assume that all muscles and bones of our body have been in 
the gas state while in the process of preparing substances for 
blood. A world of questions arise at this point. 

The first is, Where and how is food made into gas while in 
the body? If you will listen to a dyspeptic after eating, you 
will wonder where he gets all the wind that he rifts from his 
stomach, and continues for one or two hours after each meal. 
That gas is generated in the stomach and intestines, and we are 
led to believe so because we know of no other place in which it 
can be made and thrown into the stomach by any tubes or other 
methods of entry. Thus, by the evidence so far, the stom- 
ach and bowels are the one place in which this gas is gener- 
ated. I have spoken of the stomach that generates and ejects 
great quantities of gas for a longer or shorter time after meals. 
This class of people have been called dyspeptics. Another class 
of the same race of beings stand side by side with him without 
this gas generating. They, too, eat and drink of the same kind 
of food, without any of the manifestations that have been de- 
scribed in the first class. Why does one stomach blow off gas 
continually while the other does not? As No. 2 throws off no 
gas from the stomach after eating, is this conclusive evidence 
that his stomach generates no gas? Or do his stomach and 
bowels form gas just as fast as No. 1, and the secretions of 
the stomach and bowels take up and retain the nutritious mat- 
ter and pass the remainder of the gas by way of the excretory 



120 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

ducts through the skin? If the excretory ducts take up and 
carry this gas out of the body by way of the skin, and he is a 
healthy man, why not account for the other one's stomach 
ejecting this gas by way of the mouth, because of the fact that 
the secretions of the stomach are either clogged up or inactive, 
for want of vital motion of the nerve-terminals of the stomach. 

Another question in connection with this subject, Why is 
the man whose stomach belches forth gas in such abundance 
also suffering with cold feet, hands, and all over the body, while 
No. 2. is quite warm and comfortable, with a glow of warmth 
passing from his body all the time ? 

With these hints I will ask the question, What is digestion? 

The Philosophy op Digestion. 

All digestion is the result of electric shocks, sent forth from 
the brain by way of the motor system of nerves. Such shocks 
are in perpetual motion from the center of the earth to the soul 
of the surface. Not only do these shocks tear asunder all sub- 
stances found in the alimentary channel, but they impart, in- 
ject, and associate a moving principle, called vitality. Yet it is 
only vital to the work of decomposition, selection, and associa- 
tion for the purpose of forming flesh, muscle, sinew, hair, teeth, 
and bone. The different qualities found in the fluids of the 
different localities, such as brain, liver, and kidneys, are effects 
of those living shocks. The same law is just as applicable in 
reason and as true in effect in creating and imparting odors to 
the various glands in the whole system. The heart, being the 
center electro-motor engine, at every vibration is regulated by 
the velocity demanded to modify and keep the electric battery 
or the brain supplied with electricity to the normal capacity to 
supply the electro-motor, without which some degree of failing 
weakness is perceptible by beholding sluggish action and abnor- 
mal quantities of deposits in some or all parts of the cellular 



THE THORAX. 12 t 

system of the lungs, heart, stomach, bowels, uterus, lymphat- 
ics of the fascia, and system generally. 

The Heart. 

Diseases of the chest are generally confined to the lungs, 
heart, pleura, the pericardium, mediastia, with their blood- 
vessels, nerves, and lymphatics. As we open the breast we be- 
hold the heart conveniently situated to throw blood to all parts 
of the body. From it we see vessels or pipes that go to all mus- 
cles and organs, the stomach, bowels, liver, spleen, kidneys, 
bladder, womb, etc., and all bones, fibers, ligaments, mem- 
branes, lungs, and brain. When we follow the blood through 
its whole journey in feeding the different parts, be they organ 
or muscle, we find just enough unloaded at each station to sup- 
ply the demand as fast as it is consumed. Thus life is supplied 
at each stroke of the heart with blood to keep digestion in full 
motion while other supplies of blood are being made and put in 
channels to carry to the heart. This blood is freely given to 
keep the channels strong, clean, and active. Much depends on 
the heart, and great care should be given to its study, because 
a healthy system depends almost wholly on a normal heart and 
lung. The study of the framework of the chest should be done 
with the greatest care. Every joint of the neck and spine has 
much to do with a healthy heart and lung, because all vital 
fluids pass through the heart and lungs, and any slip of bone 
or strain or bruise of muscle or nerve will affect to some degree 
the usefulness of that fluid in its vitality, when it is appropri- 
ated in the place or organ it should sustain in a good healthy 
state. The osteopath 's first and last duty is to look well to a 
healthy blood- and nerve-supply. He should let his eye rest day 
and night on the spinal column, to know if the bones articulate 
truly in all facets and other bearings, and never rest day or night 
until he knows the spine is true and in line from atlas to sacrum, 



122 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

with all the ribs in perfect union with the processes of the 
spine. 

Development 

The heart, from the first visible drop of blood to the ter- 
mination of all its work in the human body, seems to follow 
specifications that were wisely written and adapted to all pur- 
poses necessary to sustain animal life. If we follow the blood 
from the heart and observe its first work after giving form to 
itself, we will see two arteries passing off to a distance. After 
watching the action and work of construction at that place, we 
find as a result the formation of the brain, which is universally 
recognized as the seat of the machinery that produces the forces 
necessary to supply the nerves that have their beginning in the 
brain and extend to every fiber, muscle, organ, and ligament 
necessary to be used in propelling the machinery of animal life. 
Not only does it provide for the machinery of force that is sta- 
tioned at a considerable distance from the heart, but it throws 
out another great river of nourishment, known as the abdom- 
inal aorta, out of which many rivers branch off to supply and 
sustain another great manufactory, which is located from the 
first lumbar to the end of the sacrum. This manufactory has 
carried on its labors for countless ages, busily pounding 
away at its work of preparing the material that supplies every 
fiber and part of the human body. No author has been kind 
enough, if wise enough, to give us any information on this great 
and important question. I wish to emphasize it very positively 
and draw your attention, with your minds separated from 
all else, while thinking, to answer this question : What would 
be the deleterious effects on the nerves of the kidneys if a sud- 
den fall, the feet slipping out directly in front, the body still 
erect, dislocated the sacrum by the velocity of the force against 
the frozen ground, ice, floor, stones, or any other unyielding 



THE THORAX. 123 

surface? The wedge-formed sacrum between the two innom- 
inate bones would be driven downward toward the ischii one- 
fourth, one-half, or one whole inch. What effect would it have 
on the shape of the coccyx, the coccygeal ligaments being fas- 
tened to the innominate ? Would it not leave the coccyx bent 
in and upward? What effect would it have on the sacral 
nerves? the whole glandular system? the circulation of the blood 
to and from all parts below the crura? At this point I want to 
call your attention to the location and function of the cauda 
equina, the crura, the solar plexus, the sympathetic nerves gen- 
erally of the abdomen, the nerves of sensation, motion, and nu- 
trition, the nerves of the pancreas, the spleen, liver, and blad- 
der, the lymphatics, the cellular system, the receptaculum 
chyli, the pudic nerves, the nerves of the uterus, and all nerves 
of the generative system of either male or female. Does not your 
compass of reason conduct you to a cause of Bright's disease of 
the kidneys, monthly disturbances, enlargement of the ovaries 
by stagnated blood to the degree of hardened deposits, to 
growths of enormous size of the various organs of the abdomen, 
such as the liver, kidneys, spleen, and so on? Have you ever 
observed that the woman with monthly convulsions has a 
sacrum twisted or driven from its normal position by blowSj 
falls, or otherwise? 

I can refer you to no author on this subject whose pen has 
ever described this arrangement as being the parent cause of 
hundreds of diseases and malformations, from the ponderous 
fibroid tumor to the rose cancer of the bladder or uterus. Here 
I wish to draw your attention to the duty of the various nerves 
found situated and distributed from one extremity of the ab- 
domen to the other. 

Heart Disease. 
In speaking of diseases of the heart and remedies therefor, 
I think it best to give the student a knowledge of what is re- 



124 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

ceived and practiced by the medical profession as found in text- 
books of practitioners of the drug system. For this purpose I 
will quote in full from the "American Text -Book on Therapeu- 
tics," by Wilson, on diseases of the heart: "In all acute affec- 
tions of the heart, therapy can be looked upon, first, as casual ; 
secondly, as symptomatic. Nearly all inflammatory conditions 
of the pericardium are secondary, and, as the cause of such con- 
ditions has already become operative, the field of treatment is 
limited to the prevention of further damage from the primary 
cause (and is in so far then casual), the relief of suffering and 
other symptoms, and finally the prevention of death, which 
may result either from the operation of the original cause or 
from ensuing complications." 

In the Dark. 
I do this to show the osteopath that one of the most learned 
authors speaks about all that is offered for the student of med- 
icine to guide him in his practice. He begins in conjectures of 
cause, such as rheumatism, which you know is an effect, com- 
ing from the failure of the heart to deliver blood in living quan- 
tity to the joints and vicinity. At this point he raises his club 
and bangs away in the dark for want of knowledge of the cause. 
He begins by advising the shoveling in of mercury, digitalis, 
opium, calomel, acids, alkalies, stimulants, and sedatives, and 
so on to the ice-bag, hot pack, blood-letting, or venesection. 
Has he said anything that he can swear by? Has he said any- 
thing that you can go by? He leaves you a blank, because 
his diagnosis and treatment are blanks also. After having 
read his "able" definition, and knowing that you do know some- 
thing of anatomy and physiology, I will say that you know too 
much anatomy and physiology and the results gained by oste- 
opathy to be satisfied to go into the treatment of the diseases 
of the heart with no knowledge of diseases or the drugs you are 



THE THORAX. 1 25 

about to administer. On that line you travel without hope. 
Right here, as osteopaths, we will take up the heart and see if 
we know the responsible duties it has to perform as headquar- 
ters of the blood-supply. I do not wish to consume your time 
unnecessarily in a lengthy description of the heart and the mil- 
lions of rivers it supplies, with all of which you have been made 
acquainted by descriptive and demonstrative anatomy, his- 
tology, and physiology. We feel the importance of asking you 
to refresh your memories once more by a vivid mental painting 
of the whole arterial system, both great and small, that you 
may be the better able to think with me as I present the subject. 

Causes. 

At this time we will introduce the subject of "heart dis- 
eases" and the mechanico-physiological causes. We will try to 
arrive at some reasonable conclusion as to the cause of intermit- 
tent heart, heart of great commotion or palpitation, heart of 
feeble force, and all those conditions which would produce 
effects known as " heart disease." They are described by an- 
cient and modern writers under many names, such as angina 
pectoris, valvular disturbances, and many other names. But 
all previous writings end with "ifs," "buts," and a few "how- 
evers" and "possiblies," without a single rock for the doctor to 
stand on. The student of medicine goes forth with his diplo- 
ma under his arm and begins a new life of guessing at cause and 
cures, with both eyes goggled by ignorance of the diseases he 
meets. He blindly begins to experiment with the drugs of 
which he has no knowledge, so far as their effects are known in 
heart disease. He is ordered and instructed by his preceptor 
to use calomel freely and frequently, morphine and digitalis 
with caution, venesection with caution, and so on, and to be 
patient with his patients ; they may get well anyhow. 

Suppose we stop and camp at this place, light our pipes 



126 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

and take a good social smoke, and ask our venerable old "med- 
icine-man" what object he had in prescribing the deadly mer- 
cury, digitalis, or morphine in case of heart disease. At this 
time we will saddle up our horses and go on. The old doctor 
has told us very kindly that he made use of these remedies 
because they have long been used by the doctors, who did not 
know anything about cause and effect. 

Now I have given you the sum total of the procedure of 
the medical practitioners of the past up to the present date, 
with their acknowledgment that they do not know the cause of 
the disease nor the effect of the drug they have been free to 
administer, with all the dignity and wise looks that could be 
painted to represent an angelic philosopher. 

A Few Facts. 
With the limited knowledge that I have of anatomy and 
physiology, I feel some degree of boldness and pleasure in pre- 
senting my views of mechanico-physiological cause of heart dis- 
eases, which I think I can present to you in a simple and philo- 
sophical manner, cle^r enough that with your knowledge of 
anatomy you will concede that I have given you the only true 
foundation on which heart-disturbances can be clearly traced 
to the causes of commotions called palpitation, angina pecto- 
ris, and the whole column of heart diseases. We will begin by 
supposition. Suppose in a person in perfect health, anatom- 
ically and physiologically perfect in all parts and functions, we 
find the heart infinitely correct in receiving and discharging 
blood in quantities just enough, with force exactly equal to all 
demands. In this picture of life we see the engine in motion, 
count the strokes, and record them at seventy per minute. 
At this time we begin in a small way to experiment with the 
body, which this engine supplies, by tying a cord around one 
of the little toes, the body lying in exactly the same position as 



THE THORAX. 1 27 

when the heart-beat was timed and recorded at seventy. Would 
we expect to find or would we have reason to expect the heart 
to make seventy strokes, no more, no less, in motion or energy? 
If we find seventy-one beats to be the number per minute with 
a small artery stopped by ligation of one little toe, what would 
be the number of beats with two toes tied? Suppose we take 
the strings off the toes and the heart falls back to seventy ; then 
drive a shingle-nail through one toe. Would you be surprised 
if the heart made seventy-five beats ? Then drive a nail through 
the other little toe. Would you be surprised to see the heart 
running eighty beats per minute? One was simple stoppage of 
blood by a cord, the other a wound which produced contracture 
of muscles, ligaments, and blood-vessels to a greater degree 
than the ligation did. I think any man with anatomical and 
physiological knowledge will be able to reason and come to the 
conclusion that if an obstruction in the least toe, and that at the 
greatest distance from the heart, disturbs its regularity and pul- 
sation, that other causes of irritation and stoppage of either 
arterial or venous blood will also cause demands that the heart 
use greater energy to force blood through the involved channels, 
just in proportion to the resistance it has to meet. When the 
heart has overlabored for many days and months to force blood 
through compressed arteries and veins, would it not be reason- 
able and would it not be safe to conclude that when a heart had 
labored to exhaustion it would tire out, quiver, and palpitate? 
I will ask your indulgence and a little more patience. I began 
at the little toe with the view of giving you a homoeopathic dose 
on obstructed circulation as evidence of the cause for heart 
disturbance. We will now commence on a larger scale. We 
have to deal with the allopathic "czar" of ignorance. It is 
not supposable that he has time to dabble with the little blood- 
vessels, and one at a time. We will hit him, if we can at all with 
reason, with the anatomical fact that numerous arteries are 



128 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

thrown off from the aorta for the purpose of supplying certain 
demands, and that by jars, twists, strains, and a world of acci- 
dents that the human body is liable to meet and pass through, 
he may have one, ten, or even all of his ribs pushed down, up, 
out, or in, so as to obstruct any or all of the intercostal arteries, 
veins, and nerves. In this deformity would he suspect that 
rheumatism was the cause of the unnatural labor and misery of 
the man's heart? I think if this venerable old sage will con- 
sult his anatomy, he will find that this philosophy has a foun- 
dation in truth, with Nature and all its works as a voucher, and 
that arterial obstruction precedes all variations from the nor- 
mal action of the heart. As you have had your mind refreshed 
upon the mechanical causes that will produce trouble of the 
heart unto death, I will tell you a few things to assist you in your 
work when called to treat persons laboring under diseases of the 
heart. Carefully explore the neck, with its union to the head, 
and ascertain positively that every joint in the neck is perfect 
at all bearings with other joints, and that all the muscles are free 
from entanglement with other muscles and processes of the 
neck. A slipped bone of the neck will limit the passage of the 
vertebral artery on its way from the heart to the brain. If the 
artery is obstructed in the bones of the neck, a disturbed heart 
will follow as one of the effects. If all joints have been found 
normal in the neck and nothing found there that could obstruct 
an artery, we will begin with the first rib as it articulates with 
the first dorsal vertebra, ascertaining whether it is normal in 
position with the spine and transverse articulation. You may 
find that rib pulled forward enough to close the vertebral fora- 
men and stop the vertebral artery at that point. If so, you 
will find commotion and irregularity of the heart's action. If 
we find nothing wrong at the first ribs, we may find a serious 
luxation of the second, third, or fourth ribs, which may shut off 
the intercostal branches. When the heart brings the blood to 



THE THORAX. 1 29 

supply the first, second, third, and fourth ribs of either side and 
is met by intercostal spaces impinged upon by twists, strains, 
or dislocations of the ribs, another positive cause of heart- 
disturbance is established, and the heart will give that peculiar 
long and heavy stroke in its effort to supply intercostal arteries. 
In our process of reasoning we will surely be sustained in the 
conclusion that all so-called heart diseases are only so many 
effects, with each effect having a cause in blood being sup- 
pressed at some point, which is the cause of the effect known as 
valvular, nervous, and other " diseases of the heart." 

I think we have said enough on the philosophy and causes 
of heart trouble to be easily understood by the pupils of my 
school, with their thorough understanding of anatomy, which 
I trust they will wisely apply in treating heart diseases. 

Aneurisms. 

Some arteries are enlarged to enormous sizes. We call 
them aneurisms or accommodation-chambers for deposits of 
blood. The artery should pass farther on ; thus you must know 
by reason an obstruction has limited the flow of the blood, and 
a tumor is an effect, and obstruction is the cause of all abnormal 
deposits, either from vein or artery. Unobstructed blood can- 
not form a tumor, nor allow inharmony to dwell in any part of 
the system. Flux is an effect caused by a variation in blood- 
supply and circulation. Blood finds veins of the abdomen irri- 
tated and contracted to such a degree that it cannot enter the 
veins with its cargo and deposits it at terminal points in the 
mucous membrane of the bowels. When the membrane fails to 
hold the blood so delivered, then the first blood which dies of 
asphyxia finds an outlet into the bowels, to be carried off and 
out by peristaltic action. Thus you have a continuous deposit 
and discharge of blood until death stops the supply. 



130 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

Rheumatism. 

Before pain begins at the joints, you are sure to find that 
all gas or wind has left the joints. Thus, electricity burns be- 
cause of bone friction. Some gas must be between all bone 
joints. Thus we find great use for atmospheric pressure to 
hold bones far enough apart to let the "joint water" pass freely 
over the opposing ends of bones. There is a natural demand for 
gas in all healthy joints of the body. Reason leads us to believe 
that gas is constantly being conveyed to or generated in all 
joints. Before rheumatism appears the separating gas has been 
exhausted, and there follows friction and electric heat because of 
there being two or more joints in one electric circuit or division, 
in place of the bone or bones between two or more articulating 
ends of a bone, or more bones thrown into the battery, in place 
of each division being independent while in functional action in 
its own division. By way of explanation I will take the thigh- 
bone, at the socket or knee articulation, filled with fluids and 
gas. Bind the bones by ligaments or membranes so as to hold the 
bones in place, with a chamber to hold joint fluids. Would it 
be complete without gas pressure to hold the bones from press- 
ing so closely together as to cause friction and heat to cause 
an electric action equal to nerve-poison? We thus get what 
we call neuralgia, rheumatism, sciatica, and so on to the 
full list of aches and pains not accounted for to date by our 
philosophers. Let us ask, if we force the hard ends of two bones 
together, as we do in jumping from elevations, with nothing to 
modify the concussions, will the bones not be bruised or mashed 
enough to become irritated if not protected by fluids and gas ? 
Then if that will be the case, how can we reason better than to 
conclude that by contracting the ligaments at joints and hold- 
ing air in that ligamentous sheath, the air will prevent the 
ends of the bones from meeting with a rushing force. We must 



THE THORAX. 131 

be prepared to take care of those bones so as not to receive 
destructive injuries. Will not such gasless joints be the begin- 
ning of the fat man? also of the lean condition? 

On this plane of reason many rich harvests await the sickle 
of reason. On this plane you can see and know the " whys" 
of consumption, dropsy, tumors, fits, gray hair, baldness, and 
so on to a surprising number of diseases. 

The Internal and External Mammary Arteries. 

A confused and suspended circulation, either of the arterial, 
venous, or lymphatic circulation, or a disturbance of the nerves 
of either the arterial, venous, or lymphatic circulation of the 
mammary glands, would be cause sufficient to draw the attention 
of the osteopathic diagnostician to a very careful investigation 
of the causes of diseases of these glands. He should know that 
the mammary artery is not oppressed or disturbed by ribs that 
have been pushed or knocked from their articulation with the 
sternum or spine, before he would be justified in giving a scien- 
tific diagnosis of the cause of tumors of the breast, goitre, dis- 
eases of the tonsils, the glands and lymphatics of the neck or 
breast, the eyes, or the giving way of important functions of any 
organ; internal or external, of the whole chest. We must 
remember that the internal mammary is a very long artery, be- 
ginning at the first rib and extending to the pelvis. Much good 
health depends upon its good work, and much bad health and 
disturbance can reasonably be expected to follow imperfect 
supply by arterial action or imperfect drainage through the 
venous and lymphatic vessels. Therefore we have a natural 
admonition to give the subject a deep and thorough investiga- 
tion for mechanical variations from the true and normal. The 
length and width of the territory through which this river of 
life travels for the purpose of supplying organs, glands, mem- 
branes, and muscles is a standing evidence to its importance 
to life. 



CHAPTER VII. 



The Diaphragm. 

New Discoveries. 

Previous to all discoveries there exists the demand for the 
discovery. Any discovery is an open question for a time and 
free to all, because in some new fact all are interested. The 
lack of something may be felt and spoken of by agriculturists, 
and inquiry directed to a better plow, a better sickle or mow- 
ing-machine with which to reap standing grain. The thinker 
reduces his thoughts to practice, and cuts the grain, leaving it 
in a condition that a raker is needed to bunch it previous to 
binding. His victory is heralded to the world as the king of 
the harvest, and so accepted. The discoverer says, " I wish I 
could bunch that grain." He begins to reason from the great 
principle of cause and effect, and sleeps not until he has added 
to his discovery an addition so ingeniously constructed that it 
will drop the grain in bunches ready for the binder. The dis- 
coverer stands by and sees in the form of a human being, hands, 
arms, and a band. He watches the motion; then starts in to 
rustle with cause and effect again. He thinks day and night, 
and by the genius of thought produces a machine to bind the 
grain. By this time another suggestion arises, how to separate 
the wheat as the machine journeys in its cutting process. To his 
convictions nothing will solve this problem but mental action. 
He thinks and dreams of cause and effect. His mind seems to 
forget all the words of his mother tongue except " cause" and 
" effect.' ' He talks and preaches cause and effect in so many 



THE DIAPHRAGM. 133 

places that his associates begin to think he is failing mentally 
and will soon be a subject for the asylum. He becomes dis- 
gusted with their lack of appreciation, seeks seclusion, and 
formulates the desired addition and threshes the grain ready 
for the bag. He has solved the question and proved to his 
neighbors that the asylum was built for them and not for him. 
With cause and effect, which are ever before the philosopher's 
eye, he plows the ocean regardless of the furious waves, and he 
dreads not the storm on the seas, because he has constructed 
his vessel with a resistance superior to the force of the lashing 
waves of the ocean, and the world scores him another victory. 
He opens his mouth and says, " By the law of cause and effect, 
I will talk to my mother, who is hundreds of miles away." 
He disturbs her rest by the rattling of a little bell in her room. 
Tremblingly, the aged mother approaches the telephone and 
asks, " Who is there?" The answer comes, " It is I, Jimmie." 
Then he asks, " To whom am I talking?" She says, " Mrs. Mary 
Murphy." The reply comes, " God bless you, mother; I am at 
Galveston, Texas, and you are in Boston, Massachusetts." She 
laughs and cries with joy; he hears every emotion of her trem- 
bling voice as she says to him : " You have succeeded at last. I 
have never doubted your final success, notwithstanding the 
neighbors have annoyed me almost to death, telling me you 
would land in the asylum, because no man could talk so as to 
be heard a thousand miles away ; his lungs were too weak and 
his tongue too short." 

"Eureka!" 

I have given you a long introduction previous to giving you 
the cause of disease, with the philosophy of cause and effect. I 
think it absolutely clear and the effect so unerring in its results 
that with Pythagoras I can say, "Eureka!" 

To find a general cause for disease, one that will stand the 



134 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

most rigid and vigorous direct and cross-examination of the 
high courts of cool-headed reason, has been the mental effort 
of all doctors and healers since time began its record. Doctors 
have had to treat disease as best they could, by methods that 
custom had established as the best, notwithstanding the fail- 
ures and great mortality under their system of treatment. They 
have not felt justified to go beyond the rules of symptomatol- 
ogy as adopted by their schools, with diagnosis, prognosis, and 
treatment. Should they digress from the rules of the "ethics 
of the profession," they would lose the brotherly love and sup- 
port of the medical associations, under the belief that "a bad 
name is as bad as death to a dog." 

Medical Doctor. 

The medical practitioner says that in union there is safety, 
and resolves to stick to this, and live and do as his school has 
disciplined all its pupils, with this command: " The day thou 
eatest anything else, thou shalt surely die. Stick to the 
brotherhood." 

The explorer for truth must first declare his independence 
of all obligations and brotherhoods of any kind whatsoever. 
He must be free to reason and think. He must establish his 
observatory upon hills of his own ; he must establish them above 
the imaginary high planes of rulers, kings, professors, and 
schools of all kinds and denominations. He must be the czar 
of his own mental empire, unincumbered with anything that 
will annoy him while he makes his observations. I believe the 
reasons are so plain, so easily comprehended, the facts in their 
support so brilliant, that I will offer them, though I be slaugh- 
tered on the altar of bigotry and intolerance. This philoso- 
phy is not intended for minds not thoroughly well posted by 
dissection and otherwise on the whole human anatomy. You 
must know its physiological laboratories and workings, with the 



the diaphragm. 135 

brain as the battery, the lungs as the machine that renovates 
the blood, and the heart as the living engine or quartermaster, 
whose duty is to supply the commissaries with blood and other 
fluids to all divisions and subdivisions of the body, which is 
engaged in producing material suited to the production of bone 
and muscle and all other substances necessary to keep the 
machinery of life in full force and action. 

Without this knowledge on the part of the reader, the 
words of this philosophy will come out as blanks before reach- 
ing his magazine of reason. This is addressed to the inde- 
pendent man or woman that can, does, and will reason. 

The Importance of the Splanchnics. 

Let us halt at the origin of the splanchnics and take a look. 
At this point we see the lower branches, sensation, motion, and 
nutrition, all slant from above the diaphragm, pointing to the 
solar plexus, which sends off branches to the pudic and sacral 
plexuses of sensory systems of nerves, just at the position 
to join the life-giving ganglia of the sacrum with orders from 
the brain to keep the process of blood-forming in full motion all 
the time. A question arises : How is this motion supplied, and 
from where? The answer is: By the brain as the nerve-supply 
and the heart as the blood-supply, both of which come from 
above the diaphragm, to keep all the machinery in form and 
supplied with motion, that it may be able to generate chyle to 
send back to the heart, to be formed into blood and thrown 
back into the arteries for the construction of the parts as need- 
ed and to keep the brain fed up to its normal power-generating 
needs. We see above the diaphragm the heart, lungs, and 
brain, the three sources of blood- and nerve-supply. All three 
are guarded by strong walls, that they may do their part in 
keeping up the life supplies as far as blood- and nerve-force is 
required. But as they generate no blood- or nerve-material, 



136 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

they must take the place of manufactories and purchase mate- 
rial from a foreign land, to have an abundance all the time. 
We see that Nature has placed its manufactories above a given 
line in the breast, and develops the crude material below that 
line. Now, as growth means motion and supply, we must com- 
bine these departments in a friendly way, and conduct the force 
from above to the regions below the septum or diaphragm, that 
we may use the powers as needed. This wall must have open- 
ings to let the blood and nerves penetrate with their supply and 
force to do the work of manufacturing. 

After all this has been done, and a twist, pressure, or ob- 
structing fold should appear from any cause, would we not have 
a cut-off in the machinery returning chyle and lymph, sensa- 
tion to supply vitality, and in the venous motion to carry off 
arterial supply that has been driven from the heart above? 
Have we not found a cause to stop all processes of life below the 
diaphragm? In short, are we not in a condition to soon be in 
a state of complete stagnation? As soon as the arteries have 
filled the venous system, which is without sensation to return 
the blood to the heart, then the heart can do nothing but wear 
out its energies trying to drive blood into a dead territory below 
the diaphragm known as the venous system. It is dead until 
sensation reaches the vein from the solar, sacral, and pudic 
plexuses. 

The Diaphragm in Health. 

At this point we will again take up the diaphragm, which 
separates the heart, lungs, and brain from the organs of life 
that are limited to the abdomen and pelvis. What has the 
diaphragm to do with good or bad health? We will analyze 
the diaphragm. We will examine its construction and its uses. 
We will examine its openings through which the blood passes. 
We will examine the opening through which food passes to the 



THE DIAPHRAGM. 1 37 

stomach. We will carefully examine the passages or openings 
for nerve-supply to the abdomen below, running this great 
system of chemistry, which is producing the various kinds of 
substances necessary to the hard and soft parts of the body. 
We must know the nerve-supply of the lymphatics, womb, liver, 
pancreas, kidneys, the generative organs, what they are, what 
they do, and what is demanded of them, before we are able to 
feed our own minds from the cup that contains the essence of 
reason as expressed by the tree of life. 

The diaphragm surely gives much food for one who would 
search for the great "whys" of disease. It may help us to 
arrive at some facts if we take each organ and division and 
make a full acquaintance with all its parts and uses before we 
combine it with others. 

he medical doctor has, owing to a lack of knowledge of 
the true causes of diseases, combated effects with his remedies. 
He treats pain with remedies to deaden pain ; congestion by an 
effort to wash out overplus of blood that has been carried to 
parts or organs of the body by arteries of blood and channels 
of secretions, and not taken up and passed off and out by the 
excretories. He sees the abnormal sizes and leaves the hunting 
of the cause that has given growth to such proportions, and 
begins to seek rest and ease for his patient. Then he calls on 
medicine to carry the waste fluids to the bowels, bladder, and 
skin, with tonics to give strength, and stimulants to increase 
the action of the heart, in order to force local deposits to the 
general excretory system. At this time let the osteopathic 
doctor take a close hunt for any fold in the muscles of the sys- 
tem that would cut off the normal supply of blood, or suspend 
the action of nerves whose office is to give power and action to 
the excretory system sufficient to keep the dead matter carried 
off as fast as it accumulates. Let us stop and acquaint ourselves 
with the true conditions of the diaphragm. It must be normal 



I38 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

in place, as it is so situated that it will admit of no abnormality. 
It must be kept stretched, just as Nature intended it should be, 
like a drumhead. It is attached all around to the chest, though 
it crosses five or six ribs on its descent from the seventh rib to 
the sternum at the lower point and down to the fourth lumbar 
vertebra. It is a continuous slanting floor above the bowels 
and abdominal organs and below the heart and lungs. It must, 
by all reason, be kept normal in tightness at all places, with- 
out a fold or wrinkle that would press the aorta, nerves, oesoph- 
agus, or anything that contributes to the supply or circulation 
of any vital substance. Now can there be any move in spine 
or ribs that would or could change the normal shape of the 
diphragm? If so, where and why? 

Out of Position. 

The diaphragm is possibly least understood as the cause 
of diseases, when its supports are not all in line and in normal 
position, than any other part of the body. It has many open- 
ings through which nerves, blood, and food pass while going from 
the chest to the parts below. It begins at the lower end of the 
breast-bone and crosses to the ribs back and down, in a slanting 
position, to the third or fourth lumbar vertebra. Like an apron, 
it holds all that is above it up, and is the fence that divides the 
organs of the abdomen from the chest. Below it are the stom- 
ach, bowels, liver, spleen, kidneys, pancreas, womb, bladdei, 
the great system of lymphatics, and the nerve-supply of the 
organs and systems of nutrition and life-supply. All parts of 
the body have a direct or indirect connection with this great 
separating muscle. It assists in all animals, when normal ; but 
when prolapsed by the falling down and in of any of the five or 
six ribs by which it is supported in place, then follow the effects 
of suspended normal arterial supply, and venous stagnation be- 
low the diaphragm. The aorta meets resistance as it goes down 



THE DIAPHRAGM. 1 39 

with blood to nourish, and the vein, as it goes back with im- 
purities contained in the venous blood, also meets an obstruc- 
tion at the diaphragm, as it returns to the heart through the 
vena cava, because of the impingement caused by a fallen dia- 
phragm on and about the blood-vessels. Thus heart trouble, 
lung disease, brain, liver, and womb diseases, tumors of the 
abdomen, and so on through the list of effects, can be traced 
to the diaphragm as the cause. 

Location. 

I am strongly impressed that the diaphragm has much to 
do with keeping all the machinery and organs of life in a healthy 
condition, and will try to give some of the reasons why, as I now 
understand them. First, it is found to be wisely located just 
below the heart and lungs, one the engine of blood and the other 
the engine of air. This strong wall holds all bodies or sub- 
stances away from either engine while it is performing its part in 
the economy of life. Each engine has a sacred duty to perform, 
under the penal law of death to itself and all other divisions of 
the whole being, man. If it should neglect its work, or should 
we take down this wall and allow the liver, stomach, and spleen 
to occupy any of the places allotted to these engines of life, a 
confusion would surely result, and the ability of the heart to 
force blood to the lungs would be overcome and cause trouble. 

Suppose we take a few diseases and submit them to the 
crucial test of reason, and see if we can find any one of the cli- 
matic fevers not having some connection with an irritated dia- 
phragm. For example, take a case of common bilious fever. It 
generally begins with a tired and sore feeling of the limbs and 
muscles, with pain in the spine, head, and lumbar region. At 
this point of our inquiry we are left in an open sea of mystery 
and conjecture as to cause. One says, " Malaria," and goes no 
further; gives a name and stops. If you ask for the cause of 



140 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

such torturous pain in the head and back, with fever and vom- 
iting, he will tell you that the very best authorities agree that 
the cause is malaria, with its peculiar diagnostic tendency to 
affect the brain, spine, and stomach, and he administers qui- 
nine, and leaves, thinking he has said and done all. 

Reason would lead seekers for the cause of the pain to re- 
member that all blood passes first as chyle up to the heart and 
lungs, directly through the diaphragm, conducted through the 
thoracic duct, first to the heart, thence to the lungs ; at the same 
time rivers of blood are pouring into the heart from all the sys- 
tem. Much of it is very impure from diseased or stale food, 
coming from the lymphatics below the diaphragm. Much of the 
chyle is dead before it enters the thoracic duct and goes to the 
lungs without enough pure blood to sustain life. Then disease 
appears. The diaphragm, when dropped front and down, and 
across the aorta and vena cava, by a lowering of the ribs on both 
sides of the spine, would cause pressure over the coeliac axis, with 
a complete abdominal stoppage. Then we have obstructed and 
damaged blood, with no hope that it can sustain life and health 
of the parts for which it was designed. We know that Nature 
would not be true to its own laws if it would do good work with 
bad material. 

Nervous Prostration. 
Why not reason on the broad scale of known facts, and give 
the "why" this or that patient has complete prostration, when 
all systems are wholly cut off from a chance to move and exe- 
cute the duties that Nature has allotted to them? Motor nerves 
must drive all substances to a part and sensation must judge 
the supply and demand. Nutrition must be in action all the 
time and keep all parts well supplied, or a failure is sure to ap- 
pear. We must ever remember the demands of Nature on the 
lymphatics, liver, and kidneys, and that nerves work all the 



THE DIAPHRAGM. I4I 

time, and that any confusion in nerves will make a cripple of 
some function of life over which they preside. 

We see that no delay in passage of food or blood can be tol- 
erated at the diaphragm, because any irritation is bound to 
cause muscular contraction and impede the natural flow of the 
blood through the abdominal aorta to a temporary, partial, or 
complete stoppage of arterial supply to the abdomen; or the vena 
cava may be so pressed upon as to completely stop the return 
of venous blood from the stomach, kidneys, bowels, the lym- 
phatics, pancreas, fascia, cellular membranes, nerve-centers, the 
ganglionic and all systems of supply of the organs of life found 
in the abdomen. Thus, by pressure, stricture, or contraction, 
the passage of blood can be stopped, either above or below the 
diaphragm, and be the cause of blood being detained long 
enough to die from asphyxia, thus causing disease. 

Thus you see a cause for Bright 's disease of the kidneys, 
diseases of the womb or ovaries, for jaundice, dysentery, leu- 
corrhcea, painful monthlies, spasms, dyspepsia, and on through 
the whole list of diseases now booked as "causes unknown, 
and treated by the rule of "cut and try." We know that all of 
the blood for the use of the whole system below the twelfth 
dorsal vertebra passes through the diaphragm, and the nerve- 
supply also passes through the diaphragm. This being a 
known fact, we have only to use our reason to know that an un- 
healthy condition of the diaphragm is bound to be followed by 
many diseases. The diaphragm is a musculo-fibrinous organ, 
and depends for blood- and nerve-supply above its own loca- 
tion, and that supply must be given freely and pure for nerve 
and blood, or we will have a diseased organ to start with. We 
may find a universal atrophy or oedema, which would, besides 
causing its own deformity, not be able to rise and fall, to assist 
the lungs to purify the venous blood, previous to returning it to 
the heart. It is only in keeping with reason that without a 



142 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

healthy diaphragm, both in its form and action, disease is bound 
to be the result. How can a carpenter build a good house out of 
rotten, twisted, or warped wood? If he can, then we can hope 
to be healthy with diseased blood; but if we must have good 
material in building, then we should form our thoughts as care- 
ful inspectors and inspect the passage of blood through the 
diaphragm, pleura, pericardium, and the fascia. Disease is just 
as liable to begin its work in the fascia and epithelium as at any 
other place. Thus the necessity for pure blood and healthy 
fascia, because all functions are equally responsible for good 
and bad results. 

God the Judge. 
At a given period of time the Lord said, "Let us make 
man." After He had made him, He examined him and pro- 
nounced him good, and not only good, but very good. Did He 
know what good was? Had He the skill to be a competent 
judge? If He was perfectly competent to judge skilled arts, 
His approval of the work when done was the fiat of mental 
competency backed by perfection. Since that architect and 
skilled mechanic has finished man and given him dominion over 
the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field, and the fishes of the 
sea, hasn't that person, being, or superstructure proven to us 
that God, the creator of all things, has armed him with strength, 
with the mind and machinery to direct and execute ? This being 
demonstrated, and leaving us without a doubt as to its perfec- 
tion, are we not admonished by all that is good and great to 
enter upon a minute examination of all the parts belonging to 
this being and acquaint ourselves with their uses and all the 
designs for which the whole being was created? Are we honestly 
interested in an acquaintance with the forms and uses of the 
parts in detail, of the material, its form and the object of its form ; 
from whence this substance is obtained, how it is produced and 



THE DIAPHRAGM. 143 

sustained through life in kind and form ; how it is moved, where 
it gets its power, and for what object does it move? A demand 
for a crucial examination of the head, the heart, the lungs, the 
chest, the stomach, the liver, and other organs of the abdo- 
men, the brain, the pericardium, and the diaphragm is ever 
present. In this examination we must know the reasons why 
any organ, vessel, or any other substance is located at a given 
place. We must run with all the rivers of blood that travel 
through the system. 

We must start our exploring boat with the blood of the 
aorta and float with this vital current, and watch the unloading 
of supplies for the diaphragm and all that is under it. We must 
follow and see what branch of this river will lead to a little or 
great toe, or to the terminals of the entire foot. We must pass 
through the waters of the Dead Sea by way of the vena cava, 
and observe the boats loaded with exhausted and worn-out 
blood, as it is poured in and channeled back to the heart. Care- 
fully watch the emptying of the vena azygos major and minor, 
with the contents of the veins of the arms and head all being 
poured in from little or great rivers to the vena innominate, on 
their way to the great hospital of life and nourishment, whose 
quartermaster is the heart, whose finishing mechanic is the lung. 
Having acquainted ourselves with the forms and locations of 
this great personality, we are ready at this time to enter into a 
higher class in which we can obtain an acquaintance with 
the physiological workings. We become acquainted with the 
"hows" and "whys" of the production of blood, bone, and all 
elements found in them necessary to sustain sensation, motion, 
nutrition, voluntary and involuntary action of the nervous 
system, and the "hows" and "whys" of the lymphatics, the 
life-sustaining powers of the brain, heart, lungs, and all the 
abdominal system, with its parts and various actions and uses, 



144 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

from the lowest cellular membrane to the highest organ of the 
body. 

When we consult the form of the cross-bar that divides the 
body into two conjoined divisions and reason on its use, we ar- 
rive at the fact that the heart and lungs must have ample space 
to suit their actions while performing their functions. What 
effect would follow the removal of the fence between the heart, 
lungs, and brain above that dividing muscle and the machinery 
that is situated below the cross-bar? We see at a glance that 
we would meet failure to the extent of the infringement on 
demanded room for normal work of the heart in its effort to 
deliver normal supplies below, the lungs to prepare blood, and 
interference with the brain and its duty of passing nerve-power 
to either engine above and all organs below the diaphragm. 

The Lesson of the Tree. 
The life of the living tree is in the bark and superficial 
fascia which lies beneath the bark. The remainder of the tree 
performs the duties of secreting. Its excretory system is first 
upward from the surface of the ground. It washes out frozen 
impurities in the spring, after which it secretes and conveys sub- 
stances to the ground through the trunk of the tree to the roots, 
like unto a placenta attached to Mother Earth, qualifying all 
substances of fiber and leaf of the part of the tree above the 
ground. Each year produces new tree additions, which are 
seen and known by circular rings called annular growths. That 
growth which was completed last year is now a being of the past 
and has no vital action of itself. But, like all stale beings, its 
process is life of another order, and dependent upon the fascia 
for its life and cellular action which lies under the bark. It can 
only act as a chemical laboratory and furnish crude material 
which is taken up by the superficial fascia and conveyed up to 
the lungs, and exchange dead for living matter to return to all 
parts of the tree, keeping up the vital formations. Its vital 



The diaphragm. 145 

process ceases through the winter season, until Mother Earth 
stimulates the placenta and starts the growth of the next new 
being, which is developed and placed in form on the old trunk. 

Should this form of vitality cease in the tree, another prin- 
ciple, which we call "stale life," takes possession and constructs 
another tree, which is just the reverse of the living tree. It 
builds a tree after its own power of formulation from the dead 
matter, to which it imparts a principle of stale life, which life 
produces mushrooms, frogstools, and other peculiar forms of 
stale beings, Thus we are prepared to reason that blood, when 
ligated and retained in that condition of dead corpuscles, and 
no longer able to support animal life, can form a zoophyte and 
all the forms peculiar to the great law of association: tume- 
factions of the lymphatics, pancreas, kidneys, liver, uterus, with 
all the glandular system, be they lymphatics, cellular, gan- 
glia, or any other parts of the body susceptible of such growths. 
We can thus account for tubercles of the abdomen and all 
organs found therein. The same law is equally applicable to the 
heart, lungs, brain, tissues, glands, fascia, and all parts capable 
of receiving and lacking the ability to excrete stale substances, 
As oedema marks the first tardiness of fluids, we have the 
beginning step which will lead from miliary tuberculosis to the 
largest known forms of tubercles, which are the effect of the 
active principles of stale life or "the life of dead matter.'' 

We will draw the attention of the reader to the fact that 
the diaphragm can contract and suspend the passage of blood 
and produce all the stagnant changes from the beginning to the 
completed tubercle, the cancer, the wen, glandular thickening 
of the neck, face, scalp, and fascia. In this stale life we have a 
compass that will lead us as explorers to the causes of tubercles, 
tumors, cancers, and ulcers. This diaphragm says, "By me 
you live and by me you die. I hold in my hands the powers 
of life and death. Acquaint now thyself with me and be at 
ease." 



CHAPTER VIII. 



The Abdomen. 

Inhibition. 

Much stress has been laid on the idea of inhibition of the 
nerves as a remedial agency. Allow me to say that inhibition 
is almost universally the cause of disease. Dunglison defines 
"inhibit," to restrain or suppress, and defines "stimulation," 
to goad; that which excites the animal economy. 

For the reader 's benefit, I wish to refresh his mind on anat- 
omy, that he may fully understand what I wish to present as a 
truth, to guide him while treating his patients, and to point him 
to the danger of doing more harm than good by pushing, pull- 
ing, and kneading the abdomen, with the idea that he inhibits 
the nerves or excites them to greater energy, thereby helping 
Nature do the work of restoration of the normal functional 
action of the organs of the abdomen. 

I will say, after forty years' observation and practice, 
that no good can come to the patient by pulling, pushing, and 
gouging in the sacred territory of the abdominal organs ; but 
much harm can and does follow bruising the solar plexus, from 
which a branch of nerves goes to each organ of the abdomen. 
Upon that center depends all the elaborate work of the func- 
tioning of the abdomen. I say, "Hands off." Go to the spine 
and ribs only. If you do not know the power of the spinal 
nerves on the liver to restore health, you must learn or quit, be- 
cause you are only an owl of hoots, more work than brains. I 
want the man who wishes to know the work that is done by the 



THE ABDOMEN. 1 47 

organs or contents of the abdomen also to know the danger of 
ignorance, and that wild force in treating the abdomen cannot 
be tolerated as any part of this sacred philosophy. 

Be Original. 

You must reason. I say reason, or you will finally fail in 
all enterprises. Form your own opinions, select all facts you 
can obtain. Compare, decide, then act. Use no man's opin- 
ions ; accept his works only. 

Having passed through the head, neck, and thorax with a 
short description of the diseases belonging to each division, and 
as our work is divided for observation and discussion into five 
parts, we will now take up the fourth division. According to 
the number, the head is one, the neck two, the thorax three, the 
abdomen four, and the pelvis five. I have established this 
arbitrary classification for the purpose of observing the workings 
of the various divisions of the body systematically, especially 
the abdominal viscera, with the view of obtaining a more def- 
inite knowledge of their perfect workings in good health. It is 
important to know the exact place that each organ occupies 
while in its normal position. Not only know it on general prin- 
ciples, but to a greater degree of perfection than any other les- 
son that is before the student of disease. We should know the 
perfect position of each organ, the blood-, nerve-, and nutrient 
supply by which its work is accomplished, from whence the sup- 
port comes, how applied, and how kept in its pure state by the 
natural functions of excreting all exhausted and diseased sub- 
stances. By this knowledge only can we expect to detect the 
many variations, both great and small, in nutrition and reno- 
vation, which is the sum total of what is meant by good health. 
Each organ seems to be a creator of its own fluid substances, 
extracted from the channels of nutrition upon which it depends. 
The quantity and quality necessary for this process are abso- 



I48 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

lute beyond dispute. This being the case, we must, in dealing 
with the abnormal, work for readjustment to normal perfection. 

A Great Host. 

We will look over the abdominal field, count the host, and 
try to be as systematic as possible. We will begin at the dia- 
phragm, the wall that separates the thorax from the abdomen. 
The abdomen contains the liver, spleen, pancreas, stomach, two 
kidneys, the bladder, small and large intestines, the omentum, 
abdominal aorta and vena cava, the blood-supply for the whole 
system of abdominal organs, the lymphatics with all secretory 
and excretory organs, and all there is found on to the pelvic 
floor. All the organs of the territory of the abdomen must 
be kept before the eye, and we must feel that we are in the pres- 
ence of perfection of all organs. We can then begin to compare 
any variation, real or imaginary, in place, form, or function of 
all that is before us. The perfect diaphragm means perfection 
at all points of its whole circular attachment, beginning with 
the sixth rib and ending with the third and fourth lumbar ver- 
tebrae. No spine can be varied from the sixth rib to the fourth 
lumbar and show perfection of the diaphragm. No rib thrown 
from its perfect position with the spinal articulation can leave 
the diaphragm perfect in its functions. Perfection of spine 
and ribs is imperative and absolutely required before we can 
hope for perfection in the flow of blood and other fluids that 
pass through the throat, aorta, vena cava, and thoracic duct. 
All must pass freely, and also their accompanying nerves, mo- 
tor and sensory, that enter into the solar plexus and all its 
branches, or a halt will appear and begin the work of creating 
disease by tardy renovation of abdominal organs as the result 
of such shortage in the function of that part or organ that must 
be kept normal by perfect renovation. Suppose we select a kid- 
ney that is normally perfect, and twist the spine at the renal 



THE ABDOMEN. 1 49 

nerve origin enough to disturb the nutrition of the kidney; 
we would expect dwarfage in its functioning to set up and build 
tubercular deposits, congestion, fermentation, and pus. Sup- 
pose we overpower sensation and the motion of the nerve by a 
lap or a strain of the spine where the spinal cord throws out 
the nerve-branches that supply the kidneys ; we would have 
paralysis of the kidneys, with all the diseases peculiar to that 
organ, the result of a deadened condition of the renal nerves. 

Geography of the Abdomen. 
As we are about to camp close to the abdomen for a season 
of explorations, to gain a more reasonable knowledge of its 
organs and their functions, we will search its geography first and 
find its location on the body or globe of life. We find a boun- 
dary line established by the general surveyor, about the middle 
of the body, called the diaphragm. This line has a very strong 
wall of striated muscle that can and does contract and dilate to 
suit the phenomenon of breathing, and the quantities of food 
that may be stored for a time in the stomach and bowels. The 
abdomen is much longer than it is wide. It is a house or shop 
builded for manufacturing purposes. In it we find the ma- 
chinery that produces rough blood or chyle and gives it out to 
be finished to perfect living blood, to supply and sustain all 
the organs of this and other divisions. This diaphragm or wall 
has several openings through which blood and nutrient vessels 
pass to and from the abdomen to heart, lungs, and brain. I 
want to draw your special attention to the fact that this dia- 
phragm must be truly normal. It must be anchored and held 
in its true position without any variation, and in order that 
you shall fully understand what I mean, I will ask you to go 
with me mentally to the ribs. Begin with the sternum, see the 
attachments, follow across with a downward course to the at- 
tachments of the diaphragm to the lower lumbar region, where 



150 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

the right crus receives a branch or strong muscle from the left 
side. The left crus in turn receives a muscle from the right, 
and the two become one common muscle, known as the left 
crus. You will easily comprehend the structure by exam- 
ining descriptive cuts in Gray, Morris, Gerrish, or any well- 
illustrated work on anatomy. You see at once a chance for 
constriction of the aorta by the muscles under which it passes, 
frequently causing without doubt the disease known as palpita- 
tion of the heart, which is only a bouncing back of the blood 
that has been stopped at the crura. Farther away from the 
spine, near the center of the diaphragm, we find another open- 
ing through this wall to accommodate the vena cava. To the 
left, a few inches below the vena cava, we find another opening 
provided for the oesophagus and its nerves. Two muscles of 
the diaphragm cross directly between the oesophagus and aorta, 
in such a manner as to be able to produce powerful prohibitory 
constriction to normal swallowing. 

The Thoracic Duct. 
At this point I will draw your attention to what I consider 
is the cause of a whole list of hitherto unexplained diseases, 
which are only effects of the blood and other fluids being pro- 
hibited from doing normal service by constrictions at the vari- 
ous openings of the diaphragm. Thus prohibition of the free 
action of the thoracic duct would produce congestion of the 
receptaculum chyli, because it would not be able to discharge its 
contents as fast as received. Is it not reasonable to suppose 
that a ligation of the thoracic duct at the diaphragm would 
retain this chyle until it would be diseased by age and fermenta- 
tion, and be thrown off into the substances of other organs of the 
abdomen, setting up new growths, such as enlargement of the 
uterus, ovaries, kidneys, liver, spleen, pancreas, omentum, lym- 
phatics, cellular membranes, and all that is known as flesh and 



THE ABDOMEN. 151 

blood below the diaphragm ? Have you not reason to urge you 
to explore and demand a deeper and more thorough anatomical 
knowledge of the diaphragm and its power to produce disease 
while in an abnormal condition from irritation, wounds, etc.? 
Remember that this is a question that will demand your knowl- 
edge of the mechanical formations and physiological actions 
and the unobstructed privileges of fluids when prepared in the 
laboratory of Nature, which must be sent at once to their des- 
tination before they become diseased or die from age. You 
must remember that you have been talked out of patience 
in the room of symptomatology, and all you have learned is 
that something ails the kidneys, and that their contents, when 
analyzed, have been found defective. In urinalysis you are 
told, "Here is fat," "Here is sugar," "Here is iron," "Here is 
pus," "Here is albumen," and "This is diabetes," "This is 
Bright's disease," but no suggestion is handed to the student's 
mind to make him know these numerous variations from nor- 
mal urine are simply effects, and the diaphragm has caused all 
the trouble, by first being irritated by ribs falling, spinal strains, 
wounds, and so on, from the coccyx to the base of the brain. 
Symptomatology is very wise in putting this and that together 
and giving it names, but it fails to give the cause of all these 
lesions. Never once has it said or intimated that the diaphragm 
is prolapsed by misplaced ribs, to which it is attached, or that it 
is diseased by injury to the spine and nerves. 

The Nerves Must Act. 
Remember there are five sets of nerves that are important 
factors in their divisions of life. They are the sensory, motor, 
nutrient, voluntary, and involuntary. With all of these you, 
as an engineer, must be familiar, and by proper adjustment 
of the body you must be able to give them unlimited power to 
perform their separate and united parts in sustaining life and 
health. 



152 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

Now, as I have tried to place in your hands a compass, flag* 
and chain that will lead you from effect to cause of disease in 
any part or organ of the whole abdomen, I hope that many 
mysteries that have hung over your mental horizon will pass 
away, and give you abiding truths, placed upon the everlasting 
rock of cause and effect. You have as little use for old symp- 
tomatology as an Irishman has for a cork when the bottle is 
empty. Osteopathy is knowledge, or it is nothing. 

Feast of Reason. 
Let me invite you to a feast at the table of reason. This 
feast is to consist of materials furnished by the greatest of au- 
thors of anatomy. The material man, with all his parts, is to be 
spread upon the broad dishes of observation, and the divine 
currents of life, displaying their wonderful works in the physi- 
ological laboratory, will be spread upon this table before the 
hungry mind as choice bits or dainties that belong to the man 
who loves to reason, and to the man who wishes to enjoy some 
of the fruits from the trees of mental life. Our bill of fare is all 
before you. We will have sixteen changes of dishes at this feast. 
Each dish will contain the greatest amount of vital nourish- 
ment that the human tongue of reason has ever been called 
upon to sample and taste. Our bill of fare reads, ' ' Brain, heart, 
lungs, diaphragm, pancreas, spleen, stomach, liver and gall- 
sac, large and small intestines, rectum, kidneys and ureters, 
uterus, and bladder." The length of the table is from the coc- 
cyx to the occiput, and its width the diameter of the human 
body. This feast will be one of but little interest or relish to 
the man who does not understand the combined beauties of 
anatomy and physiology. The sweetness of taste comes with 
an intimate acquaintance, by long and deep study of the com- 
position and use of each dish of organic life set before the 
invited host. Without such acquaintace, no dish upon this 



THK ABDOMEN. 153 

table will be relished ; therefore, the invitation is only for him 
who has qualified himself to partake of the interesting discourse. 
When every dish appears upon this table without a flaw or 
crack, and the dainties are as pure as Nature's God prepares 
and sends forth, then we will have a feast whose joys can neither 
be fathomed nor imagined. These dainties on which you are 
invited to feast are as eternal as the ages, as wisely prepared as 
the God of the universe has been able to furnish by His law of 
absolute perfection. All are invited. This table to which you are 
invited is durable. The choice nourishment which is to be 
spread before you is as inexhaustible as the days of both ends of 
eternity; therefore, this feast will neither end with mortality 
nor immortality. Come one, come all. 

On our bill of fare at this abdominal feast we have enumer- 
ated by number and name all the dishes to be served. The 
osteopath feasts upon the dishes that are found upon the table 
of the abdomen, and each course will be required to be eaten 
systematically by the invited guests. The plates will appear 
in each course by threes. Of the plates of the first course, one 
will contain the stomach, another the small intestine, while the 
third and last will be the large intestine. We feast you upon 
this course of the alimentary canal, first, that you may know, 
from the entering to the expelling of all material substances, the 
extent of the whole road through which the alimentary sub- 
stances pass. The second course will consist of three darker col- 
ored dishes, with a purple tint. One contains the liver, anothet 
the spleen, and the third the kidneys. The third course con- 
sists of the heart, arteries, and veins. The fourth course, of an 
equal number of dishes, contains the brain and the motor and 
sensory nerves. The lungs, with their physical and chemical 
laboratory for purifying and preparing the blood for universal 
distribution and use throughout the body, when presented to 
the heart for that purpose, constitute the fifth. The sixth 



154 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

course will be the diaphragm, with its vessels of secretion and 
nutrition, its form, locality, and its use. The seventh will con- 
tain the bladders, ureters, and the general system of collecting 
and excreting lifeless fluids through the excretory channels. 
The ovaries and nerve- and blood-supply of the generative 
system are the eighth course. 

Lessons to Learn. 
This allegoric illustration has been given in order to accus- 
tom your mind to feast and learn something of the forms of 
the organs of life in the human body. As you seem to be quite 
handy in eating through each change of courses, and seem to be 
familiar with the anatomical form and location of the various 
systems of organs, we will hand you out the ninth change, con- 
sisting of four dishes, the number required to contain the dif- 
ferent divisions by name and locality of the one system known 
to us as the absorbing laboratory of nutritious substances from 
the alimentary canal. The first very large dish will contain the 
greater and lesser omenta ; the second, third, and fourth will 
contain the different divisions of the mesentery, beginning with 
the meso-caecum, meso-transversalis, meso-colon, and meso- 
rectum. The mesentery is shown by examination to be made 
of very strong and elastic substances, supplied with blood- 
vessels, lymphatics, and secretory and excretory systems, with 
nerves to suit its functioning process. We also find its attach- 
ments to the spine and bowels to be very extensive, extend- 
ing many inches in length, about four to six up and down the 
anterior surface of the spinal column, beginning with the second 
lumbar. Its attachment at the other extremity from the spine 
is to the bowels. The small intestine attachment is very exten- 
sive. When the fan-shaped edge of attachment is measured, 
it equals about eighteen or twenty feet, as generally observed 
and reported by authors on anatomy and according to our own 



THE ABDOMEN. 155 

observations in dissections. The meso-caecum is firmly attached 
both to the spine and that part of the intestines known as the 
ascending colon. This membrane is quite strong and elastic. 
The meso-transversalis and meso-colon are also firmly attached 
to the spine at the one extremity and to the bowels at the other. 
This membranous sheet is very elastic and very liable to be 
stretched when the bowels are pressed down by mechanical 
weights or great quantities of faecal matter. The caecum and 
the transverse and sigmoid flexure are often forced from their 
normal positions and piled into the pelvis, dragging the uterus 
and small intestine down with the caecum and obstructing all 
possible chance for the fluids of the small intestine to pass 
through the ileo-caecal valve and reach the colon. Thus we have 
a visible, philosophical cause for obstruction of faecal matter. 
That is not debatable by any person who is endowed with any 
power to reason from cause to effect. 

Harmony Must Exist. 
We will say to the student of the philosophy of diseases of 
the abdomen and their remote, active, and present causes, that 
he is better prepared to take up the subject of diseases of the 
many or few organs of the abdominal viscera if he knows 
what is meant by disease of the organs of the abdomen, pelvis, 
and chest. All these organs must work in perfect harmony to 
produce health. Health requires the continuous action of 
every organ, all nerves, all blood-vessels, all lymphatics, all the 
secretory system, and all the excretory system, in order that 
when the united products are thrown into the thoracic duct or 
any other duct that conveys lymph or any other fluid, they will 
be conveyed to the lungs. It is reasonable that this fluid, from 
the many thousands of cells and channels through which it is 
passed, will become as a unit. In order that health may be per- 
fect, every drop of fluid must be conveyed from the lower bowels, 



I56 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

beginning with the rectum, ascending through the sigmoid and 
up the left side of the abdomen, through the descending colon 
and transverse colon and down to the iliac fossa, which is the 
normal position allotted to the caecum. Reason will teach you 
at once that each drop of lymph or venous blood coming from 
the whole system of the large bowels, and absorbed by the mes- 
entery and conveyed through that system to the thoracic duct, 
must be absolutely and chemically pure, or disease will mark 
the amount of variation caused by the amount of impurities 
that are taken up by the mesenteries of any division, from the 
rectum to the ileo-csecal valve. 

An Obstruction. 
The importance of a knowledge and a very thorough knowl- 
edge of the form and place, the function and object of the pro- 
ductive ability, application, and use of the fluids necessary to 
the production of good health is apparent. If after this prep- 
aration is completed by the lungs and we have good blood, any 
diseased condition of the viscera of the pelvis or thorax should 
appear, in the form of thickening of the membranes, congestion, 
thickening, or tumefaction of any organ or its appendages, 
then we have a positive witness that a lymphatic duct, an ex- 
cretory duct, or a venous duct is stopped by the ligation of its 
channel by constriction, weight, or a cramp, or from pressure of 
bone or muscle, preventing the passage of the fluid that has 
been detained and has given size and form to this abnormal 
tumefaction found adjacent to some gland. All interferences are 
labeled to your understanding at once, by enlargement through 
stoppage of fluids which ferment, inflame, and produce erysip- 
elas and other manifestations of inflammations. The same 
method of reasoning will enable the doctor of osteopathy to 
prove to his understanding and satisfaction that acute and 
chronic dysentery have origin and continuation from these 



THE ABDOMEN. 157 

obstructing causes. The same method of reasoning is just as 
good in typhoid dysentery. The genius of anatomy and phys- 
iology, with any ordinary amount of mechanical skill, will see 
by all methods of reasoning that the caecum, the sigmoid, and 
the small intestine are ditched into the pelvis, pressing and 
compressing the nerves, veins, and arteries that should at all 
times be free to act normally, or congestion, inflammation, and 
sloughing away of the mucous membrane of the bowels, with 
blood, lymph, and other substances, will follow. This dis- 
turbance will produce irritation of other glands, through the 
nervous system, and cause those irritated organs to unload their 
diseased substances into the lymphatic and nervous channels 
and convey this confused and poisonous mass of fluid back to 
the lungs from the whole alimentary canal, the bladder, the 
uterus, the kidneys, the liver, the spleen, the pancreas, and by 
this physiological and chemical manifestation you can easily 
account for variation in temperature known as the hot and 
cold stages that accompany typhoid and other classes of fevers. 

The Omentum. 
We have spoken in another place of the importance that 
should be attached to the mesentery, uterus, and other organs, 
and how they can become diseased, and in their effort to return 
to the normal have generated tumors, inflammation, sloughing 
away, and so on. We will now take up the omentum, and try 
to treat this organ with consideration and due respect. We 
are satisfied that it has much to do, if not all, in keeping the 
lungs in a healthy condition. We have reason to believe, from 
the history of post-mortems following tuberculosis and other 
diseases of the lungs, that had this organ, the great omentum, 
been kept normally in position, form, and size, well nourished 
and properly renovated, we would have had but very little, 
if any, tuberculosis of the lungs to report. We believe that we 



158 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

have abundance of evidence to prove the responsibility that is 
upon the omentum to sustain life and health and keep the lungs 
forever pure. This subject will be discussed at greater length 
under the head of "Diseases of the Lungs.' ' 

Blood- and Nerve-Supply. 
We will insist on the student giving particular attention 
to a knowledge of blood- and nerve-supply, and we insist on 
his obtaining an exact and very comprehensive knowledge of 
both supplies before he can expect to do acceptable work, sat- 
isfactory to himself and to his patients. The blood and nerves 
have much to do in producing and sustaining health. To have 
perfection in blood-flow and nerve-power in health, means union 
and action of both. Of what use would incomplete action be, 
when perfect health is the result of the full and free action of 
the nerves on blood that is to pass from the heart to all places, 
if either blood- or nerve-currents should be stopped by any 
cause? In the abdomen are many organs and functions that 
must act all the time, and they must have blood to act on and 
nerve-energy with which to act. 

The Pancreas. 
The pancreas opens the subject of demand and supply for 
its use. This organ in healthy action gives back that finest of 
milk, the pancreatic juice, that supplies, feeds, and nourishes 
the whole system of the mucous membrane, tissues, and gen- 
eral structures of the small intestine, while it receives and mixes 
the gall with the food as it passes through the small intestine, 
preparatory to being elaborated in the large intestine and 
given back as blood in its first stages to the lymphatics, to be 
conveyed to the heart and lungs for the final finishing to blood. 
This blood is sent forth by the heart by way of the arteries, 
great and small, to each gland for its use. A plentiful supply of 



THE ABDOMEN. 159 

blood branches off from the greater arteries after leaving the 
heart to supply each organ, with all its attachments, all to 
perfect fullness of supply. This blood system and the spinal 
cord, the brain, the nerves, with force equal to all, demands 
healthy action in each organ of the head, neck, chest, abdomen, 
and limbs, with no exception to the law of demand and sup- 
ply, which is absolute through all nature. 

X 

Away with Quackery. , 
But our present work, for a time, is to fight the battles of the 
abdomen and free it from drug quackery and the abuses that the 
viscera receive from ignorance of drugs and their effects, and 
the continued blind faith kept up by the drug doctors in their 
efficacy. If Nature requires drugs, where would it go to find 
the laboratory that could be trusted to make drugs that would 
benefit the body? Would it trust its own liver to make the 
gall? Would it, in time of need, trust the pancreas to make 
good juice? Would it trust the heart and lungs to make or 
finish good blood and dose it out to the invalid organs of the 
body? Would it trust each organ for its own products as the 
system should need its remedial agency? 

The Importance of Pure Blood. 
If the abdomen provides the rough material for the blood 
of the system, and perfect health can only come from good 
blood, and perfect blood cannot be furnished by imperfect vis- 
cera nor any imperfection in form, location, or function of any 
organ of the abdomen, chest, or brain, why not hunt for some 
cause of disease in the machinery that produces blood from the 
start to its finish ? If we find a failure in health, we would surely 
show wisdom by going into the machine-shop to find defects 
in the machine or system of organs which starts with crude 
material and brings forth pure blood. We would have to begin 



l6o PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

with the mouth and critically examine for imperfections in both 
jaws; examine the articulations, the muscles, nerves, tongue, 
and teeth. If found good, mark "O. K." Then take the throat. 
Be a careful critic, and find to a certainty that every muscle, 
ligament, nerve, and all blood-supply are perfectly normal from 
mouth to stomach, and if so, mark "O. K." Take up the stom- 
ach ; if good, pass on to the duodenum arid the rest of the small 
intestine, and follow that channel to its ending in the colon at 
the ileo-caecal valve. If normal, take up the colon ; begin at the 
caecum and find that it is not too far down in the pelvis ; see that 
the sigmoid colon does not force the caecum into the pelvis and 
pull womb, bladder, and small intestine into the pelvic cavity 
and close the caecal valve. If all is found to be in a normal con- 
dition, we will seek further for some cause for the failure in pro- 
duction of healthy blood. We will explore the whole extent, 
beginning with the ileo-caecal valve, and up the right side to the 
point of curvature, where the transverse colon starts to cross 
the abdomen. If that division be found good after careful 
examination, we will then take up the subject of exploring the 
descending colon. Follow down the left side as far as it is firmly 
attached to the spine by the mesentery to that loose division 
generally known as the sigmoid flexure or division of the 
descending colon. This division is very liable to drop into the 
pelvis in such a manner as to make a stoppage of faecal matter 
by short and obstructing kinks of the colon, through which 
faecal matter cannot pass on account of obstructions just 
described. If no trouble is found after a careful examination 
of the ileo-caecal valve, the ascending colon, transverse and 
descending colon, we will move on to the rectum for further 
observations. If that division is found to be truly normal, it 
would be useless to prosecute a further exploration of the ali- 
mentary canal for the cause of diseased blood. We will now 
take up the mesentery at its highest attachment, pass on down 



THE ABDOMEN. l6l 

to the caecum, and see that there is no undue elongation of the 
membranes that hold the bowels in their normal position. If 
the spinal attachment is found to be truly normal with the spine 
and the large bowel, with no abnormal kinks or twists in the 
folds of the mesentery, and our search has been complete, we 
will also have to report this part of the investigation as good. 
The colon, from the caecal valve to the rectal termination, being 
normal, we will proceed no further with the exploration of the 
large bowel, but take up the small intestine for the purpose of 
exploration from the duodenum to the caecum. If we find no 
undue proportions of the mesentery in the region of the duo- 
denum, particularly in the vicinity of the connection of the gall- 
pipe with the duodenum and the pancreatic duct, we will journey 
from this point downward to the point where the ileum con- 
nects with the colon. If there are no kinks, folds, intussuscep- 
tion of the bowels, or no obstructions by hernia or faecal matter, 
and no adhesions, we will be in duty bound to report the whole 
alimentary canal normal from mouth to anus, and seek the 
cause of physiological disturbance in some other system of the 
viscera. 

Diseased Blood. 
Let us reason from the known facts that we possess, when 
we seek for causes of diseases of the organs of the abdomen. 
What effect does diseased blood of the organs of any part of the 
body, by its progressive injury, produce on the general system 
by its poisonous compounds on blood, lymph, and nerve? First, 
we know that the aorta supplies the abdominal viscera, direct 
from the heart, and it is easy to find just where the blood comes 
from that supplies the pancreas, spleen, liver, stomach, bowels, 
kidneys, uterus, omentum, and the mesentery system or any 
part of the abdomen. Also, we can just as easily find the ven- 
ous system that returns the blood to the heart. We can find 



1 62 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

and follow the lymphatic system of the abdomen, in all its 
functions, to the heart and lungs, with its supply of raw mate- 
rial to keep up the supply of blood for the whole system. We 
know the nerve-supply, both spinal and sympathetic, for the 
whole abdominal viscera, its uses and location. With this 
knowledge of nerve-, blood-, and lymph-supplies, we are well 
prepared to begin to reason and search successfully for causes 
of diseases that arise in the abdomen from injuries to the vis- 
cera, from mechanical or other causes, or hurts to the organs, 
muscles, glands, or membranes of the abdomen. In diseases of 
the pancreas, cause for disease would be found in a deranged 
nerve-, blood-, or lymph-supply, or the ducts that deliver the 
pancreatic juice to the duodenum. If the disease should ap- 
pear in the spleen, the same system of searching for the cause 
would be indicated, to find the cause for blood- and nerve- 
failure in keeping up the normal functioning of the spleen. 
The same method would apply to the liver and direct the seeker 
to the cause that was responsible for diseases of the liver and 
gall-sac, and banish from the doctor's mind all doubt as to the 
cause of tumors, gall-stones, cancers, and on through the list of 
liver and gall diseases. 

We all know, if we have even a little knowledge of anatomy, 
that the coeliac axis branches out from the aorta just below the 
diaphragm, and supplies the pancreas, spleen, liver, and stom- 
ach. We know how the blood returns from each one of them, 
and also how the nerve-supply leaves the solar plexus to give 
blood-action to and from each organ of the abdomen. Perfec- 
tion in blood-flow to and from all organs must be perpetually 
normal or disease will show its work in lack of blood to supply 
the local or general nourishment to the organ that is diseased 
or starved for want of blood. If the arterial supply is good, 
the venous and lymphatic systems must do the work of drain- 
ing, or we will have a large spleen or liver, a congested stomach 



THE ABDOMEN. 1 63 

or pancreas, all from the break in the blood-, lymph-, or nerve- 
chain of supply. This law holds good in supplies, drainage, 
purity, and health of all organs of the system, just as well as 
those I have named. The cause of uterine growths, and of dis- 
eases of the intestines, is absolute ; Nature never changes. To 
find the obstruction of the blood- and nerve-functioning is the 
object of the person who reasons and cures by osteopathy. 

How about Nature? 
Does Nature do its work to a finish ? If so, we have a last- 
ing foundation on which to stand. Then we must work to ac- 
quaint ourselves with the process by which it proceeds to do its 
work in the physical man. Not only to make a well-planned 
and well-builded superstructure, but to care for and guard 
against the approach and possession of foreign elements, that 
either cripple or hinder perfect action in all functions of the 
organs to form protective compounds that will ward off the 
formation of fungous growths of blood and flesh before the lat- 
ter can get deadly possession of the laboratory of animal life. 
XSuch fungous growths as microbes, germs, bacteria, parasites, 
and so on to all abnormal formations, are reported to have 
been found in the bodies of the sick by many authors, as 
results of their investigations of the compounds in the blood, 
sputa, and stools of the sick. We will not dispute the fact that 
they have been and often are found in the blood, sputa, and 
faecal and other substances of the body. We will willingly admit 
that they are truths as reported as the results of discoveries 
made by many of the most learned and painstaking scientists 
of years of the past and of the years of our own day and gener- 
ation. That the student may the better comprehend my 
object, I will admit and agree that such organisms as described 
are found in lung disease, disease of the stomach, bowels, liver, 
kidneys, or any organ of the system. I do not wish to dis- 



164 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

prove their existence, but wish to take such witnesses and 
try to prove that all such abnormal changes have a cause in 
suspension of arterial or venous blood, or lymph, the excretory 
systems, or by their nerve-supply being cut off at some impor- 
tant point of the physical work. A clean shop is just as neces- 
sary to good work as the skilled mechanic is to the construction 
of the part desired. A careful hunt for the broken link that has 
allowed the chain of life to fail to make the work complete 
throughout, and let life substances spoil in the blood or lymph 
before it has been used in the place or purpose for which it was 
designed, must be instituted. I want to impress upon you 
that all bad sputa, poor lymph, and defective blood are effects 
only, and a broken link is the cause, and bacteria are only the 
buzzards formed by the biogen that is in the dead blood itself. 

Based on Facts. 
The science of osteopathy is based on a system of reason- 
ing that does not go beyond principles and truths that can be 
proven to exist in all of man's make-up, both physical and vital. 
A truth can always be demonstrated ; otherwise, we may have 
only a theory that is awaiting demonstration, but which until 
demonstrated does not merit adoption, neither should it be 
taught until abundantly proven by reliable demonstration. 
Then, such truths are ever-living facts and will lead the pos- 
sessor to good results all the time. An organ is supplied by an 
artery sent as a branch from some principal trunk, and that 
trunk is connected to others that run back to the heart from 
the territory in which the organ is situated. If the work has 
been done well and the organ is found to be normal in size and 
action, we have found a demonstrated truth that the blood was 
delivered and used normally by the forces necessary to give 
form and function to organized life. We prove by observation 
that the work necessary to that organ is true, because the organ 



THE ABDOMEN. I65 

is perfect, in place, size, and function, which could not be if 
there were an imperfection in the blood, its vessels, or the nerves 
of the organ, or those by which it was constructed and kept up 
to meet the normal demands of organic life. We must aim to 
gain a commanding knowledge of all parts of the body and the 
methods necessary to keep all parts in position, to insure the 
delivery and appropriation of the blood to its intended use, to 
build the organ and keep it normally pure. If we find perfec- 
tion to be the condition of an organ, we are justified to pro- 
nounce that part good, until some accident befalls it that causes 
abnormal features, which will teach you that a failure has ap- 
peared in some part of the supply or appropriation. With your 
knowledge, you are warranted in seeking the cause and proceed- 
ing to readjust the parts from any imperfection discovered to the 
original condition of the organ and all thereunto belonging, pro- 
vided there is an open approach from the heart to the organ and 
in return from the organ back to the heart. When you have 
adjusted the physical to its normal demands, Nature univer- 
sally supplies the remainder. I think I have said enough of 
the importance of the truly normal in form and functions of the 
organs of the body to take up and make special application of 
this philosophical guide to a careful search for the true cause of 
any variation from the healthy condition. 

Begin at the Rectum. 
. I will proceed to draw your attention to natural causes 
that would produce the beginning of diseases. We will begin 
our observation at the very foundation of the abdominal viscera, 
the rectum, the colon, back and up the left side to the point that 
would lead across the abdomen to the caecum, whose normal 
position is the right iliac fossa. It here makes connection with 
the small intestine, and is also provided with a valve to admit 
fluids when passing in one direction and to refuse the return 



1 66 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

passage of any substance from the caecum back and through 
the small intestine. We wish to travel as explorers from the 
rectum through the large and small intestines, stomach, and 
throat, with a view toward a practical knowledge of the normal 
position of the different divisions of the alimentary tract. 
Knowing that the alimentary system is an all-important part 
of the body mechanism, we can only expect good and healthy 
results from that which is normal in the whole canal, in form, 
size, and position, before we can ask for normal functioning, 
because every organ's health depends without doubt upon nor- 
mality in every principle and action of the parts of the ali- 
mentary canal from the mouth to the anus. We must recog- 
nize the importance of knowledge, and much knowledge, of the 
alimentary system, without which the osteopath is a failure. 

The Function of the Viscera. 
It is my object and intention to prove by philosophy, his- 
tory, and demonstration that the abdominal viscera are respon- 
sible for our good health, and that they are the sole dependence 
for our normal physical forms and forces.^ I want to admonish 
the student of this philosophy that if the anatomical forms are 
definitely correct in position, and held in that position by nor- 
mal ligaments, we can expect perfectly natural work in every 
department of all the organs of the abdomen, the present field 
of exploration. It is just as reasonable to expect that variations 
from the normal in any organ, nerve, or blood-vessel will pro- 
duce diseases in the functioning or the nerves, blood-vessels, 
and adjacent organs, and add to the already diseased or dis- 
turbed conditions by bulky deposits in the lymphatic cells and 
glands. We have in this manner a new obstruction created 
from the thickened membranes and flesh through which blood 
and other substances are conveyed from one organ to another. 
This would be a good cause to set up deranged conditions, fer- 



THE ABDOMEN. 1 67 

mentation, inflammation, and pus-formation. We have rea- 
soned and demonstrated to the physiological anatomist, who is 
aided by his knowledge of chemistry, that diseased conditions 
must follow soon after stoppage and deposits of any sub- 
stances. Local fermentation will set up and become extended 
by progressive encroachment. 

That the student may understand what we mean by liga- 
ments, or ligamentous attachments, we will begin with the 
ascending colon and ask your attention to its attachment to the 
spine, also to its composition, its elasticity, and its contractile 
power, because of the great importance to know how far this 
muscle, meso-caecum, will allow the caecum to descend into the 
pelvis with other divisions of the bowels, if at all, without tear- 
ing away from its spinal attachment. Then, we will carefully 
note the attachment of the anchorage of the transverse colon, 
and find how much stretching of the wandering muscle toward 
the pelvis, with the weight of the bowels and their contents, will 
be allowed before a tear or separation would occur. By this 
observation we wish to be informed how far from the spinal 
column the transverse colon could fall down toward the pelvis. 
We will now take up the descending colon, drawing your atten- 
tion to its attachments by such membranes as confine it to the 
spine. Carefully note, with great caution, how much the 
descending colon will be allowed to descend by the elasticity of 
its mesentery. The mesentery in post-mortems has been found 
to have grown to great lengths from the spine, which would per- 
mit the bowels to wander from their natural position, filling the 
pelvis with impacted faecal matter. We invite the attention of 
the patient reader particularly to the mesenteries, for the pur- 
pose of receiving and giving more light on the cause of typhoid 
fever, constipation, flux, dysentery, etc. 



1 68 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

The Mesentery. 

The bowels are attached to and held in place by a web or 
flat rope or elastic sheet attached to the front of the spine at 
one extremity and the other extremity attached to the bowels. 
This web is long enough to allow the bowels to change, roll, or 
move to different places in the abdomen. It is well for the 
student to know about how far that muscle will allow the bow- 
els to move from their normal position, while diagnosing any 
disease. He should know if that change in the position of the 
bowels would or could impinge on the natural flow of the blood 
and other fluids for general purposes in animal life. How much 
variation, if any, of the bowels can be tolerated and not cause 
bad results ? Many grave questions arise in the minds of the stu- 
dents when reasoning on the failure of health and the causes 
that have given rise to that abnormal condition in the func- 
tioning of one, many, or all of the organs of the body. As there 
is something of a sameness in the symptoms of many diseases, 
we would naturally reason that equal causes would be required 
to give a soreness of spine, limbs, flesh, and brain, hot or cold 
sensations and stupor, and other symptoms that are common 
to all climatic diseases. As we have spoken of the similarity 
of symptoms that are given by all works or authors on general 
practice or therapeutics, we can contrast or compare their gen- 
eral symptoms as proof that they do act on the same nerves in 
just about the same way. If they affect the nervous system 
similarly, then the causes of such effects belong to the same 
systems of lymphatic glands, cells, and systems of nutrition 
that belong to the deep and superficial fascia or pancreas. 

The human being is one of the animals whose body stands 
erect or perpendicular to the earth. He stands upon two feet. 
Other animal bodies have four feet, on which they stand and 
hold the body in the horizontal position or parallel with the 
earth's surface. It is reasonable to suppose that the bodies of 



THE abdomen. 169 

both organs are fastened to the spine by muscles and ligaments 
(mesentery), which are prepared in size, form, and strength to 
hold each organ to its normal position during motion and rest. 
As the organs of the four-footed animals are suspended under 
the spine and hang directly toward the earth 's center, the liga- 
ments would be normal only when they accommodate the organ 
to that horizontal spine. The erect body of the two-footed 
animal must have its sustaining ligaments correspond with the 
erect position of the body, with the strength and forms to suit 
the weights which they are intended to support, and at the same 
time be more powerfully attached to the spine than in the four- 
footed animal. In man we may expect much flopping, twist- 
ing, and kinking in the mesentery, producing all sorts of varia- 
tion from the normal condition, health. 

The Omentum. 
This chapter is on diseases that follow injuries of the 
greater or lesser omentum, the mesentery, and fascia. All con- 
tain great amounts of blood-vessels and lymphatic vessels and 
glands, peculiarly arranged to supply and drain each system, 
with all the nerves necessary to the force required in the 
functioning labors of secreting and preparing material sub- 
stances to be used as blood-force. Any person who has ever 
been in a butcher-shop, slaughter-house, or on a farm, and has 
seen the farmer kill hogs for fresh meat, knows that the hog has 
a fatty covering over the bowels, and that the farmer calls that 
sheet of fat the "caul fat" of the hog. He sees the farmer cut 
this fatty sheet loose from the stomach and the ligaments that 
join it to the spine, spleen, pancreas, and diaphragm. He thus 
gets a general idea of the size and form of the omentum or "caul 
fat," but he has learned nothing of its use, more than that it 
is spread out over the bowels. The student of anatomy soon 
learns that it is in man about twelve to sixteen inches wide at 



170 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

the upper end and rounds off to suit the abdomen as it descends 
from the stomach. It is about one-half of an inch thick. It 
has a few large arteries distributed through its body and a full 
supply of very fine arteries that furnish blood for the lymph- 
vessels and glands. The muscular and fibrinous tissue-cells 
are equally well supplied with blood. 

What Is the Function? 

But all this knowledge does not give light on the function 
of that organ. Let us halt and hunt for more light. It is evi- 
dent as we approach the omentum and take into consideration 
its form, its blood-, nerve-, and lymph-supply, that we are in the 
presence of some kind of a manufacturer, and it is our object 
to become, if possible, better acquainted with the object for 
which Nature has constructed and placed the omentum in such 
an important location. If it is the office of this organ to take 
up the lymph and other crude materials and construct vital 
substances, we want to be benefited by a knowledge of that 
fact. We see lymph-, blood-, and nerve-systems all through the 
omentum and its attachments in all its parts. We see the 
channels through which substances enter the omentum. We 
know the origin of blood-, nerve-, and lymph-supplies from dis- 
sections. We know this is a laboratory, and have reason to 
believe it is a very fine one, and we also believe that it is respon- 
sible as an official for the performance of great duties in pro- 
ducing and sustaining healthy conditions of the whole system 
by the purity of the substances it collects, prepares, and sends 
forth. Without that perfection we cannot reasonably expect 
or hope for good health. If perfect normality in all its active 
principles is a guarantee of good health, is it not just as reason- 
able to guarantee diseased condition of the whole body when the 
omentum becomes diseased by wounds or injuries of any kind ? 

I have taken up my pen with the view of giving a few 
thoughts on the use of the omentum, in conjunction with the 



THE ABDOMEN. 17I 

mesenteries, in keeping the body physiologically normal. I 
take up this subject and approach it with consideration to 
the cause of disease and death, in the hope that I may present 
the responsibility that naturally falls upon the mesentery and 
the omentum. We will begin with the membranous attach- 
ments, starting at the neck and following the spine clear on 
down to the last division of the sacrum. These membranes are 
attached first to the spinal column, and then to the various 
organs of the neck, chest, abdomen, and pelvis. We wish to go 
beyond the simple fact that organs are attached to and held in 
position by some part of this system of membranes, well known 
to the anatomist by the name of peritoneum. It is the physi- 
ological action and productive power found in this almost 
continuous system from the neck to the sacrum to which we 
wish to draw the student's attention. All these membranous 
attachments from the neck to the sacrum are abundantly sup- 
plied with nerves, blood, and lymphatic vessels. Their office 
as such is known to be that of secreting and sending lymph and 
other substances to the heart and lungs, to be prepared and 
returned in due time to construct and keep various organs and 
divisions of the body in a healthy condition, that each organ, 
separate and united, can keep the system in the normal con- 
dition which we recognize and call good health. In order 
that we may proceed correctly in considering nutrition as being 
prepared and sent forth to the heart and lungs for sustaining 
the body normally, we will halt for observation in the vicinity 
of the meso-rectum, meso-colon, transversalis and descending 
colon, and the small intestine throughout the attachment of 
this whole system of the mesentery. We will first take the 
thought of the mechanical preparation of the secretion and 
reception of the digested fluids as absorbed by the secretories of 
the mesentery. We will also seriously consider the physiolog- 
ical functioning during the collection of this fluid and its course 



172 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

in receiving the finishing touches, previous to its being sent out 
from the heart and handed over to the constructing machin- 
ery of animal life. We wish to ask of your reason, how much 
of this mesentery system would be required to produce and 
sustain perfect health? It appears to me that no other answer 
would be given that would be satisfactory to the man of reason 
short of, that all of the entire mesentery system must pull to- 
gether all the time, or a failure of some organ to perform its duty 
will undoubtedly appear. At this time we wish to dwell par- 
ticularly upon the omentum and its power to sustain the lungs 
in a healthy condition by furnishing in part or in whole the 
substance necessary to keep lung, muscle, and tissue supplied 
with muscular form and force to receive the coming sub- 
stances that pass to the lungs, through the vena porta, to be pre- 
pared by the chemical action which separates the impurities, 
and the physiological power necessary to reject those impuri- 
ties, to receive and deliver to the heart the suitable substances 
to be sent out and keep up the continuous repair of the body, 
and to retain the lungs themselves in the very best working 
order, that they may be able through the muscular and nerve 
power to do all the work incumbent upon them. Perhaps it 
would be best to say to the student at this time that so far as the 
writer can ascertain from post-mortems reported in great num- 
ber by anatomists after investigations of diseases of the heart, 
kidneys, bowels, uterus, and the spleen, universally the omen- 
tum has been found in an abnormal condition in cases of 
tuberculosis of the lungs. I wish to call your attention to the 
fact that, so far as I can obtain any evidence, all post-mortems 
show that the omentums examined have been diseased or found 
misplaced. Foreign growths or shrinkage of the omentum 
have been found in all post-mortems. Since then, the atten- 
tion of the writer has been called to the thought that possibly 
tuberculosis was more of a disease of the omentum and mesen- 



THE ABDOMEN. 173 

tery than of the lungs. With this view, I believe that at an 
early day we will be successful with lung diseases — in fact, 
with diseases of all organs of the body — in proportion to our 
acquaintance with the omentum and mesentery. Almost the 
whole list of diseases of climate and season will show a failure 
of the mesentery to sustain health through normal action, 
which, when properly understood, will reveal variations from 
the normal and physiological workings of the omentum, mesen- 
tery, or peritoneum from the neck to the sacrum. In proof of 
this, we will report observations on our conclusions as to the 
cause of diseases of the glandular and lymphatic systems. With 
the evidence we have, we believe such variations mark the 
beginning of the mesenteric failures in some function, either of 
the blood-, nerve-, or lymph-supplies, and physiological failures 
to act to their full normal capacity as required by the exacting 
demands of health. 

Established One Cause. 
When the beginning cause of disease is found and estab- 
lished as positively as can be reasoned out by paralytic falling 
of the bowels into the pelvis, when a wrench of the spinal col- 
umn has been given with force enough to slip the vertebral ar- 
ticulations and inhibit nerves, then we have proven one cause 
that has let the muscles of the mesentery give up contractility 
and allow the colon to fall into the pelvis. Thus we see the 
importance of a perfectly normal spine at all points of articu- 
lation. In this case, to fall into the pelvis is just as certain to 
follow and will be observed by the bowels as strictly as falling 
bodies observe the laws of gravitation. We have a heavy pull- 
ing of the mesentery attachment at the spine by the weight ap- 
plied at the point of attachment to the large bowels, giving the 
bowels abnormality in position and weight. That weight rests 
directly upon the organs that have preceded this fall of the 
bowels and now occupy a position in the pelvis, to be tortured 



174 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

by the oppressive weight of the bowels loaded with immovable 
faecal matter. We have the weight lying across both ureters, 
descending from the kidneys to the bladder. We have irrita- 
tion of the kidneys by cut-off of the flow of urine between the 
kidneys and the bladder. This urine, suspended or prohibited 
from entering the bladder, accumulates to an irritable quantity 
between the point of suspension or inhibition and the kid- 
ney end of the ureter. We have a qualified condition for the 
absorption and distribution of uremic poisons in poisonous 
quantities by the secretory system of the abdomen. We have a 
known cause, in reason, for so-called kidney diseases. We feel 
we have proven the frequent and even common occurrence of 
'* wreckage " of the bowels, bladder, and womb, held down by 
contracture of the abdominal wall, the weight of the bowels 
with their contents, the womb and its congested body, and all 
attached membranes and fascia, with the added weight of 
congestion caused by detained venous blood. Further wreckage 
continues by interference with the arterial blood, which is 
stopped from reaching its natural landings. Another conse- 
quence is a great enlargement of veins, lymph-cells, cysts, and 
tubes of receipt and distribution. The excretory channels also 
become shocked and confused as effects of the first pelvic 
wreck. From that confused pile of wreckage, we can easily 
account for the formation of tumors on the uterus, bladder, 
rectum, and for all diseases of the abdominal viscera, such as 
tuberculosis of the bowels, kidneys, liver, pancreas, and spleen. 
All these effects are possible, all are reasonable, and all are 
indisputable effects that follow wreckage of the organs of the 
abdomen. 

Appendicitis. 
At the present time, more than at any other time since 
the birth of Christ, the men of the medical and surgical world 
Jiave centralized their minds for the purpose of relieving local 



THE ABDOMEN. 1 75 

conditions, excruciating pain, below the kidneys, in both the 
male and female. 

For some reason, possibly justifiable, it has been decided 
to open the human body and explore the region just below the 
right kidney in search of the cause of this trouble. The explo- 
rations were made upon the dead first. Small seeds and other 
substances have been found in the vermiform appendix, which 
is a hollow tube several inches in length. These discoveries led 
to explorations in the same locality in the living. In some of the 
cases, though very few, seeds and other substances have been 
found in the vermiform appendix, supposed to be the cause of 
inflammation of the appendix. Some have been successfully 
removed, and permanent relief followed the operation. These 
explorations and successes in finding substances in the vermi- 
form appendix, their removal, and successful recovery in some 
cases, have led to what may properly be termed a hasty system 
of diagnosis, and it has become very prevalent, being resorted 
to by many physicians, under the impression that the vermi- 
form appendix is of no use, and that the human being is just as 
well off without it. 

Therefore it is resolved, that as nothing positive is known 
of the trouble in the location above described, it is guessed that 
it is a disease of the vermiform appendix. Therefore they 
etherize and dissect for the purpose of exploring, to ascertain 
if the guess is right or wrong. In the diagnosis, this is a well- 
defined case of appendicitis. The surgeon 's knife is driven 
through the quivering flesh in great eagerness in search of the 
vermiform appendix. The bowels are rolled over and around 
in search of the appendix. Sometimes some substances are 
found in it, but more often, to the chagrin of the exploring phy- 
sician, it is found to be in a perfectly healthy and normal condi- 
tion. So seldom is it found containing seeds or any substance 
whatever that, as a general rule, it is a useless and dangerous 



I76 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

experiment. The percentage of deaths caused by the knife 
and ether, and the permanently crippled, will justify the asser- 
tion that it would be far better for the human race if they lived 
and died in ignorance of appendicitis. A few genuine cases 
might die from that cause ; but if the knife were the only known 
remedy, it were better that one should die occasionally than to 
continue this system. 

Another Victory. 
Osteopathy furnishes the world with a relief here which is 
absolutely safe, without the loss of a drop of blood, that has for 
its foundation and philosophy a fact based upon the longitu- 
dinal contractile ability of the appendix itself, which is able to 
eject by its natural forces any substances that may by an 
unnatural move be forced into the appendix. - My first osteo- 
pathic treatment for appendicitis was in 1877, at which time I 
treated a Mr. Surratt and gave permanent relief. During the 
early eighties I treated and permanently cured Mrs. Emily Pick- 
ler, of Kirksville, mother of our former representative, S. M. 
Pickler, and mother of former Congressman John A. Pickler, 
of South Dakota. The infirmary has had bad cases of appendi- 
citis, probably running in numbers up into hundreds, without 
failing to relieve and cure a single case. The ability of the 
appendix to receive and discharge foreign substances is taught 
in the American School of Osteopathy and is successfully prac- 
ticed by its diplomates. In the case of Mr. Surratt, I found 
lateral twist of lumbar bones. I adjusted the spine, lifted the 
bowels, and he got well. When I was called to Mrs. Pickler, 
she had been put on light diet, by the surgeon, preparatory to 
the knife. She soon recovered under my treatment without 
any surgical operation, and is alive and well at this date. 

Many Queries. 
To many, such questions as these will arise. Has the 
appendix at its entrance a sphincter muscle similar in action to 



The abdomen. 177 

that of the rectum and oesophagus? Has it the power to con- 
tract and dilate, to contract and shorten in its length and eject 
all substances when the nerves are in a normal condition ? And 
where is the nerve that failed to act to throw out the substance 
that entered the cavity of the appendix? Has God been so 
forgetful as to leave the appendix in such a condition as to 
receive foreign bodies, without preparing it by its power of con- 
traction, or otherwise, to throw out such substances? If He 
has, He surely has forgotten part of His work. Reason has 
taught me that He has done a perfect work, and on that line I 
have proceeded to treat appendicitis for twenty-five years, 
without pain and misery to the patient, and have given per- 
manent relief in all the cases that have come to me. > With the 
diagnosis of doctors and surgeons that appendicitis was the 
malady, and the choice of relief was between the knife and 
death, or possibly both, many such cases have come for osteo- 
pathic treatment, and examination has revealed in every case 
that there has been previous injury to some set of spinal nerves, 
caused by jars, strains, or falls. Every case of appendicitis 
and renal or gall-stones can be traced to some such cause. 

These principles I have proclaimed and thought for thirty 
years. 

God 's Work Complete. 

We should use caution in our assertions that Nature has 
made its work so complete in animal forms and furnished them 
w T ith such wisely prepared principles that they could produce 
and administer remedies to suit the occasion, and not go out- 
side of the body to find them. Should we find by experiment 
that man is so arranged and wisely furnished by Deity as to 
ferret out disease and purify and keep the temple of life in ease 
and health, we should hesitate to make known the fact. The 
opposite opinion has had full sway for centuries, and man has, 



178 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY 






by habit, long usage, and ignorance, adjusted his mind so as to 
submit to customs of the great past, so that should he try, with- 
out previous training, to reason and bring his mind to the alti- 
tude of the thought of the greatness and wisdom of the Infinite, 
he might become insane or fall back in a stupor and exist only 
as a living mental blank in the great ocean of life. It would be 
a great calamity to have all the untrained minds shocked so 
seriously as to cause them to lose the might of reason they now 
have, and be sent back once more to dwell in Darwin 's proto- 
plasm. I tell you there is danger, and we must be careful to 
show the people small stars, and but one at a time, till they can 
begin to reason and realize that God has done all that the wisest 
can attribute to Him. 

What Are Abdominal Tumors ? 
At this time the term "abdominal tumors" applies to the 
womb and its appendages, but really it should include the 
tumefaction of any organ, muscle, or membrane of the abdomen. 
But the tendency to attribute such growths to the womb as 
natural to its various productive powers seems to veil the eye 
of the gynaecologist to all else excepting the native ability of 
the womb to grow tumors by the bushel. Suppose they do 
grow, where and what is the parent cause that deposited the 
germ? as nothing can appear or exist without a cause. Hither 
close to or remote from, we should seek with determined dili- 
gence for the cause that is behind, giving life and form to 
tumors on any organ, muscle, or membrane of the abdomen. 
Abdominal tumors are as natural as gravitation. Tumefaction 
is only the natural effect that follows or appears in the abdomen 
or pelvis when lymph is stopped in its natural channels in any 
organ or part of the viscera or abdominal wall. In the abdo- 
men we find a house or chamber, all nicely prepared, lined or 
calcimined with tissues, membranes, and fascia, with lymphatic 






THE ABDOMEN. 179 

glands, cells, nerves, veins, and arteries. Then in the abdo- 
men we see or find just room enough for the easy working of the 
organs while functioning in all divisions, and reason demands 
that to succeed in good and perfect work no two or more organs 
can work perfectly when one is crowding on another. If not, 
what can we expect but strangulation at points, and the 
appearance of growths that develop owing to the stoppage of 
lymph in the lymph-channels and cells? Thus it is that piles 
are caused by pressure on the bowels. When the caecum falls 
down into the pelvis, it shuts off the returning blood in the 
hemorrhoidal veins and gives us a cause for tumors of the rec- 
tum. Let me draw your attention to the fact that as sure as 
the caecum drops low in the pelvis, and obstruction of faecal 
matter appears, then you have irritation of the bowels and 
constipation, with the weight of the faecal matter of the large 
and small intestines to completely stop free and natural action 
of the nerve- and blood-supply of the contents of the pelvis. 
Thus we have no pelvic action, because it is wedged full to over- 
flowing with foreign bodies and substances that ought to be 
held back and off by their own mesenteries. They have failed 
to keep the large bowels up and out of the pelvis, and we see 
cause for confusion, the beginning of pelvic and abdominal 
growths, from oedema to the great tumors of the abdomen. 
The student of anatomy and physiology will see at once the 
cause, beginning in the pelvis and proceeding from the anus 
to the tonsils, creating all forms and kinds of abdominal 
tumors and cancers of the bladder, womb, bowels, kidneys, 
appendix, pancreas, stomach, gall-sac, liver, spleen, heart, lungs, 
and brain. How would any person account for the growth of 
a fibroid tumor of the uterus, pelvis, or any section or organ 
of the abdominal viscera? To stop a river with an ice-gorge 
does not stop the flow of water, but sends it to surrounding ter- 
ritory just as fast as the gorge builds the dam up higher, and it 



I SO PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OK OSTEOPATHY 

is just as reasonable to know that a dam across a river of blood 
will drive the blood to other places just as long as the supply 
comes. 

Prolapsed Viscera. 
Prolapsed viscera create or are the cause of many dis- 
turbances of the nerve- and blood- currents. Venous blood 
dies in the veins to such a degree that it can only be applied to 
build up by the vital help given by the lymphatic veins. We 
reason that this is the cause of the growths in regions of venous 
oppression by weights or strictures. An artery has much force 
to propel blood through its channel, while the vein has but lit- 
tle if any. Thus the arteries can keep up the vitality of the 
venous blood or lymph and build mountains or great-sized 
tumors. In this way we can account for tumors appearing in 
many places in the body, particularly in the abdominal viscera. 
A venous current of blood stopped in return does not die, but 
is kept alive by the vitality of the arterial blood, and builds the 
excrescences of the abdomen. Beginning at the sphincter ani 
and ending at the brain, we see the effects of congestion in 
tumefactions and general or special abnormalities, loss of hair, 
sight, and hearing, diseased tonsils, nasal membranes, and air- 
passages. All are directly or indirectly accounted for, and it 
can be quite easily demonstrated that they will follow disturb- 
ances of blood- and lymph-circulation. This should be well 
comprehended by the student of natural philosophy, particu- 
larly the one in the study of the machinery of life. He can 
demonstrate this law to his own mind by adjusting that part 
or foundation over which the blood should travel from the aorta 
to the pancreas, for the purpose of giving nourishment to that 
organ and all its functioning apparatus. Having already ad- 
justed the territory through which the arterial vessels pass, to 
the absolutely normal, with the flow of blood free and easy 



THE ABDOMEN. l8l 

from the aorta to the pancreas, we will take up the consider- 
ation of the venous flow from the pancreas back to the vena 
cava. This returning current of blood is more liable to do 
mischief if suspended or stopped beyond its normal time in 
the veins of the pancreas, becoming a cause of disease and 
death by imperfect production of pancreatic fluids, which 
should be perfect before entering the duodenum. We then 
have reason to decide that imperfection of the functioning of 
the bowels, both large and small, would follow. We would 
expect fever, thirst, constipation, and chronic inflammation 
of the bowels from the duodenum to the ileo-csecal valve. 
Also, for the want of this nourishment, we would expect to 
discover a weakness in the nerves of the mesenteries, which 
would be followed by elongation of the mesentery. This would 
lengthen the mesentery and allow the bowels, by their weight 
of faecal matter and blood- and lymph-stagnation, to fall very 
low down into the abdomen and pile up in a confused mass. 
The caecum would fall to the very bottom of the pelvic floor, 
and the ileo-caecal valve would be obstructed under this pile of 
fallen bodies. 

Go into Camp. 

Let me refresh your minds that in dissections the spleen, 
kidneys, stomach, uterus, bladder, and large and small intes- 
tines have frequently been found in the pelvis. I want you 
to camp on the borders of the pelvis again, and stay there 
with your microscope, both in hand and head, until you know 
what this great wreckage of the viscera has produced by hav- 
ing been thrown into the pelvis from any cause whatsoever, 
either mechanical or chemical. We must remember that the 
pelvis is well supplied with systems of nerves, on which the 
health and vitality of every organ that is in the body 
is dependent, for health and harmonious systemic support. 



1 82 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

With us the foundation of life must be solidly constructed 
of stones of the highest grades of purity, or your house will 
lean toward the imperfect stones in the foundation; your 
building will bulge, crack, decay, and fall down, and become 
simply a heap of ruins that will write the history of ignorance 
on the part of the architect and builder. The foundations of 
life must be absolutely good, and we must have them perfect 
before we proceed from the pelvis to judge and adjust other 
organs of the abdomen. 

The Liver. 
The liver swings in a hammock formed of five ligamentous 
ropes, attached to the spine and diaphragm, and with the 
abdominal ends firmly fastened to the liver until they have sur- 
rounded the whole organ and returned to the spine and dia- 
phragm, making a swinging bed or hammock, or basket, to suit 
the form and functions of this organ. Normality of this ham- 
mock in which the liver rests must be expected, or the reverse 
of health predicted. This hammock is provided with the 
necessary openings for the passage into the liver of blood 
and other fluids necessary to the functioning process, that 
should not be disturbed by the interference of blood-, nerve-, 
and lymph-supplies. The spine must show mechanical cor- 
rectness in all its bearings when inspected by the line, plumb, 
and level of the osteopath's highest or best skill and his well- 
trained mechanical genius, which should be of the highest men- 
tal standards of anatomical, physiological, and chemical knowl- 
edge. We believe that reason will bear us out that many, 
if not all, of the so-called liver diseases come from hurts, jars, 
jolts, temperature, and poisons. Should the hammock be cut 
loose at any point of its attachments, the liver would suffer- 
This can be illustrated by bringing forward the case of a lady 
who is comfortably resting in a summer hammock, when some 
additional weight is thrown upon the hammock, breaking the 



THE ABDOMEN. iS^ 

topes of attachment and allowing the occupant to fall to the 
ground, a distance or one or many feet. She is shocked, bruised, 
and crippled the whole length of the spine, and probably suf- 
fers injury to the abdominal viscera. It is reasonable to know 
that the liver while in its hammock, doing the duties of its 
office, must be allowed to do its work without disturbance. 
The osteopath of average intelligence needs but little further 
explanation to comprehend the dangers and diseases liable to 
follow a disturbance of the liver while in this hammock, nest, 
basket, or resting-place, prepared by Nature to hold this organ 
while performing the duties which belong to it. 

The Kidneys. 
The diseases of the kidneys are as follows : 
Congestion of the kidney, 
Acute parenchymatous nephritis, 
Chronic parenchymatous nephritis, 
Interstitial nephritis, 
Amyloid kidney, 
Pyelitis, 
Acute uraemia, 
Renal calculi, 
Cystitis, 
Movable kidney. 

Fighting Effects. 
Before presenting the osteopathic opinion of the above 
list of kidney diseases, with the remote and active causes of 
their appearance as abnormalities, we will give the student 
the benefit of the best up-to-date theory and classification of 
diseases of the kidney. The very best authors on diseases of 
the kidneys seem to be satisfied to know and combat the 
effects of those diseases, and give only a little light on the cause. 
We see this is the case with many writers, who simply classify 



184 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

effects, such as changes of the urine from the normal to the 
various conditions as found and reported by urinalysis. We 
have an extensive description of the kidney, and know that 
congestion and inflammation produce many bad results, but 
we are not satisfied to proceed further without inquiring into 
the causes that produce the effects. The first question that 
arises according to the tenets of osteopathy is, Has the kidney 
been responsible for the production of the causes of its own 
destruction? If not, we must seek to discover a more satis- 
factory explanation. Leaving the kidney for a time, we will 
examine the structure and location of the ascending colon, 
carefully examine the mesentery or the meso-caecum, and 
ascertain if the membrane or white muscle attached to the 
bowels is long enough or elastic enough to allow the caecum to 
descend into the pelvis to the perineum. If so, the hardened 
faecal matter will become the irritating cause of disease by pull- 
ing upon the spinal attachment of the mesentery just below 
the kidneys. If the caecum has fallen into the pelvis, and the 
sigmoid colon thrown from left to right in this region, would 
it not compress the ileo-caecal valve and stop the passage of 
faecal matter from the small intestine into the colon? By the 
weight of this impacted faecal matter that has accumulated in 
the ascending, the transverse, and descending colon, the ileo- 
caecal valve is stopped and even the softer fluids are prevented 
from entering the colon. We have in this a cause for irritation 
of the pelvic organs and suspension of the flow of the fluids 
of the pelvis, and the whole lower division of the abdomen 
becomes filled up to the region of the renal system. 

Our Basis. 
We do not pretend to dispute the effects of the foregoing 
list of special named kidney diseases, but the cause that has 
produced those effects is what the osteopath must look for. 



the abdomen. 185 

Without a good knowledge of the cause or causes producing 
those effects, we could not feel justified in offering any sugges- 
tion in the treatment of those diseases, because of the general 
failure in the treatment of kidney diseases by the best known 

* medical authorities. The dependence of the medical doctor 
for the relief and recovery of his patient in renal diseases is all 
in one common channel — that is, drugs to suit such diseases 
as listed under each name, notwithstanding all known drugs 
have been a failure and the patient dies just as quickly with 

, them, and often more quickly than without them. I have 
hinted at the possibility, the probability, and the certainty of 
the large intestine settling down into the lower part of the 
abdomen and pelvis, producing a partial or complete obstruc- 
tion of the blood- and nerve-supply of that division of the body. 
I believe that the intelligent student will argree with me that 
ninety out of every hundred of the cases of renal diseases, 
stomach diseases, and pancreatic diseases can be proven by 
demonstration to have their origin in the condition of the 
mesentery of the ascending, transverse, and descending colon, 
allowing it to stretch down low enough to cause the large and 
small intestines to be responsible for the effects above enumer- 
ated. I think right here is where the M.D.s have shown the 
least sense of power of reasoning in relieving constipation, of 

1 the real causes of which they are ignorant. The effects that go 
on during this prolapsed condition of the bowels are plainly 
seen. Any man with a fairly good anatomical knowledge will 

, decide, at once, that we have here a philosophy that is capable 

1 of being sustained by its application. I think here are facts 
that will make the advocates of medicine blush with shame 
because they have never solved the question, neither have they 
seen nor even thought of it, as shown by the best authors to 
this day. 



1 86 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHV. 

The Stomach. 
Gas is formed in great quantities in the stomach, in the 
small intestine, and in the colon. Gas is also formed in the 
lungs. The gas that forms in the stomach and bowels is 
formed from raw or crude materials that are taken into the 
stomach as nourishment. The fact that gas is generated in the 
whole alimentary canal is too well known to be questioned by 
anyone. We know it to be a fact. We also know that the 
whole canal from the mouth to the rectum is fully supplied 
with secretory ducts, and that they secrete such substances as 
are required for the metabolism of these parts. We know that 
the bowels contain fluids and gases in great abundance, and it 
is reasonable to suppose that Nature has an object in this work 
of generating or first converting food into gas. We have no 
evidence that an atom of flesh or bone that is found in the 
body has not been reduced to gas, either in the bowels or lungs, 
before it became blood. Our best microscopes fail to detect 
the smallest atoms of flesh or hair, bones, and teeth. We have 
such questions as this before us : Could the atoms of a hair be 
reduced to such fine condition in any other way than through 
the gaseous process? Astronomy claims that worlds are only 
gas condensed from vapor to solids. If so, we see the work of 
condensing done on a large scale to form a planet of eight, ten, 
or one hundred thousand miles in diameter. Another question 
arises : How is such a quantity of gas formed to make so large 
a planet as Jupiter, sixty thousand miles in diameter? or Arc- 
turus, seventy-two million miles in diameter? Gas seems to 
be native to space, and how it is condensed is the question for 
astronomers to solve. We will limit our study to man's sys- 
tem only, and see how the gas-works in him form the fine sub- 
stances found in his make-up. We speak of digestion, how 
various fluids are compounded and the changes brought about 
in the stomach and bowels, and how additions of pancreatic 



THE ABDOMEN. 187 

juice, gall, and so on produce a fluid that is taken up by the 
absorbents of the mesentery and called chyme, chyle, and 
lymph, and united with venous blood, and passed by way of the 
vessels of the liver and on to a successful landing in the lungs. 
There we find our eyes beholding this blood and lymph finished 
and divided into two hundred million parts, with that number 
of air-cells, to be converted into gas, the impurities separated 
from the pure, the bad cast out and the good condensed to blood 
and sent to the heart, to be sent out and appropriated as flesh, 
to take its place in the body and do all the duties incumbent 
on the economy of physical life. So far I think we are safe to 
say that all evidence is favorable to the fact that bones, teeth, 
muscles, tendons, nerves, blood-vessels, hair, and organs of the 
body have had their origin from gas, and are only condensed 
gas. Now, we as chemists of good health, to succeed in cur- 
ing our patients, must keep the gas-making machinery in good 
mechanical condition to do laboratory work, or we surely will 
fail to cure or even relieve our patient. 

The Philosophy op Digestion. 
Digestion is food reduced to atoms of gas, both by chemical 
union and animal heat. The stomach is a finely constructed 
gas-retort. It begins the process of mixing food. At the time 
of swallowing the first morsel of food, it forms gas very fast, 
often faster than the secretions can take it up, and rifting of 
wind begins in order to relieve the oppression of the stomach. 
Evidently Nature would bring food to its highest purity to 
make blood. Thus the demand would be imperative for the 
reduction of all food to its lowest atoms, and as gas is that 
degree of the atom, it would be reasonable that the machinery 
to suit gas-making would be abundantly supplied in the body. 
The task for the wise man is to find and locate the machinery 
that does the work of converting the food into gas. As we 



1 88 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

have located the stomach and proven that it begins the proc- 
ess of gas-generating, we will follow the next step and begin 
at the duodenum, where the partially mixed food passes out 
of the stomach and receives gall, pancreatic juice, and other 
chemicals. Here more gas is formed by chemical action in the 
small intestine and passed into the mesentery from the bowels, 
clear on to the ileo-caecal valve and on to the colon, the third 
and last division of the intestinal apparatus, which reduces 
substances to gas by stale fermentation and gives that gas to 
the great sheets of mesentery attached to the bowels and sup- 
plied with networks of lymphatics, whose work is to absorb 
the atoms of nourishment from the colon and pass them on to 
the thoracic duct and on to the liver, lungs, and heart. Thus 
we recognize the importance of keeping the gas-making 
machinery in good working order, by keeping out all kinks 
and twists in any part or division of the mesentery and small 
and large intestines. Is the machinery of the alimentary 
canal all that belongs to the process of refining food previous to 
its transformation into blood? No; we have another, and the 
greatest gas-works of all, when we get to the lungs, which 
receive the lymph almost in its pure state with the venous blood 
for its highest refining process before it can go to the heart as 
living blood. Thus we enter and close the whole process of 
forming blood through the gas process of digestion, the only 
reasonable method of getting bread into the condition of living 
blood. 

The Process op Digestion by Electricity. 
Take a halt, reason, and answer this one question: Has 
electricty any quality except force ? Does it simply move worlds 
and such bodies as have form and motion? If a large tree is 
torn to atoms by electricity, does electriciy do that powerful 
work? Or does it cause an explosion of the elements found in 
the tree? Digestion is my object of inquiry. Man eats and 



THE ABDOMEN. 189 

drinks of almost all birds, beasts, and reptiles. He masticates 
until his teeth are all gone. He swallows hard chunks of beef 
and other diets without mastication, with but little change 
that is apparent in his health and strength. At this point I 
will say that I am not satisfied with the explanations of our 
physiologists on the subject of digestion. They tell us we 
chew, swallow, and our food goes through many changes in the 
stomach, and they stop after giving us a few Greek words, 
such as osmosis, exosmosis, endosmosis, motion, get out, get in. 
Back to my question : Have we not great reason to believe that 
digestion is Nature's process of reaching matter that is to be 
converted to the finest gaseous atoms before it can be formed 
into blood? If that be true, surely our diets must be combus- 
tible, and electricity causes the combustion and separation of 
the atoms of substances eaten by man and beast. 

Constipation of the Bowels. 
Gould says : ' ' Constipation is a condition of the bowels 
in which the bowels evacuate at long periods apart." This 
gives the ordinary meaning of the word, but we must learn 
more of the causes that produce the effect known as constipation. 
As a disease it varies in degrees of severity. Some cases of 
constipation run from two to fourteen days, and are not then 
relieved without the use of purgatives, or the use of water with 
or without compounds to soften the hard and dry faeces. A 
halt has come ; the bowels have failed in their function ; the 
power to pass out faecal matter is lost or overcome from some 
cause. Irritation from hard and bulky accumulation sets up and 
disturbs the nervous system, fever follows, backache, headache, 
and general abdominal disturbances come on, with various 
annoyances, such as piles, kidney troubles, bladder and womb 
diseases, womb, rectum, ovarian, and abdominal tumors, en- 
larged and cancerous liver, gall-stones, bladder-stones, sour 



190 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

stomach, loss of appetite, flatulency, congestion of the spleen 
and pancreas, stopping the normality in all organs of the 
abdomen and pelvis, until the heart and lungs are reached in 
the progressive effects of constipation. All these effects come 
with constipation. But the cause of all this trouble from the 
bowels not acting normally has not been shown to the student 
by the writers on disease. The fascia, mesentery, and peri- 
toneum have not been reported on as causes, while being held 
in an irritable strain by the large bowels being out of their nor- 
mal places, by having been forced into the pelvic cavity. This 
pressure across the abdomen when the bowels are full of faecal 
matter pushes the caecum down to the pelvic floor and forces 
it to stay there by the size and weight of the sigmoid colon. It 
closes the entry from the ileum to the caecum, and cuts off the 
chances of the small intestine to supply the colon with water 
and other fluids, to keep the faecal matter soft enough to be 
forced through the colon and out of the body. 

The Treatment of Constipation. 
The general understanding of constipation as taught and 
practiced through all these ages has been that there is much or 
some faecal matter detained in the large intestine, beginning 
with the caecum, ascending, transverse, and descending colon 
to the rectum. It also means that faecal matter from some 
cause becomes hard and dry and accumulates in the large bowel 
because it is too dry ; that the mucous membrane has lost its 
power of furnishing the fluids necessary to force the passage of 
the albuminous substances by removing friction between the 
faecal body and the membranes of the inner surface of the 
bowels. It is a reasonable proposition that it would take more 
force to push a dry body over a dry place than it would to push 
a moist body over a well-lubricated surface. A question arises : 
From what part of the body does this faecal lubricating sub- 



THB ABDOMEN. I9I 

stance come? If from the colon, evidently it would furnish 
this fluid, lubricate the faecal matter, and peristaltic action 
would easily pass the substance on and out through the whole 
channel of the colon from the caecum through to the rectum. 
We are told that the colon does not furnish enough lubricating 
fluid for this purpose ; therefore we will seek for a more abund- 
ant supply from some other source, which would take us back, 
with our anatomical and physiological knowledge, to the pan- 
creas. We will halt at the duodenum, to examine the gate 
through which this fluid passes. If an obstruction is at this 
point in the form of thickened membranes, gall-stones, or any 
other bulky substances that would shut off the pancreatic duct 
by stricture or interference, we should proceed at once to 
remove the obstructing cause that prohibits the free entry of the 
pancreatic juice. If constipation should resist all ordinary 
methods of relief, with a good supply of pancreatic juice in the 
small intestine, we should inspect every inch from the duo- 
denum to the ileo-caecal valve, with the view of finding the 
obstruction. At this point is the union or entry of the small 
intestine into the colon, a point about two or three inches above 
the rounded end of that part of the colon known as the caecum. 
We are very likely to find the obstruction at the ileo-caecal 
valve, the terminal of the small bowel, with the caecum fallen 
and forced into the pelvis from the right iliac fossa. This 
would destroy the ability of the small intestine to pass this 
fluid to the colon and lubricate the large intestine with the 
pancreatic fluids. Then, as mechanics of osteopathy, we will 
take the knee-and-chest position, place the hands upon the 
abdomen, draw the caecum out of the pelvis, and give exit to the 
pancreatic juice from the small to the large intestine, because 
we have found the cause of obstruction and know the remedy 
to be applied. When the caecum is drawn from the pelvis and 
the ascending colon is brought back to its normal position in 



192 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

the right iliac fossa, with the rounded end about level with the 
symphysis, we can expect the ileo-caecal valve to give passage 
to the fluids detained in the small intestine and discharge them 
freely. The fluids of the small intestine should be forwarded 
through the ileo-caecal valve in order to keep the contents of 
the colon in a soft and movable condition, a condition in which 
peristaltic action is able to keep the faecal matter in constant 
motion. We thus have a known cause for constipation, which 
is simply a failure of the fluids of the small intestine to enter 
the large. When the liquid substances have passed from the 
small to the large intestine through the ileo-caecal valve, then 
we can expect a commotion, a colicky feeling throughout the 
whole extent of the colon, because of the addition of the fluids 
coming from the small bowel, which are forced into the large 
intestine and greatly increase the bulk already occupying the 
large intestine. This bulk is increased in size by the soft fluids 
dissolving the harder. In that condition there is need that the 
ascending colon be normal, that the transverse colon have its 
proper position, and that all parts to the point of descent and 
through the sigmoid division be absolutely normal. 

In the treatment, carefully, while in the knee-and-chest 
position, with gentle pressure in the vicinity of the symphysis, 
give a gliding move up toward the left kidney, follow the trans- 
verse colon, raise any sagging that may be found in that divi- 
sion with a gentle upward move, without any gouging of the 
fingers, and raise the whole alimentary system up toward the 
umbilicus. Should there be very much colicky feeling, gently 
lift the bowels from the rectum back through the sigmoid 
division and descending division of the colon, clear back to the 
ileo-caecal valve. Be careful not to let the caecum fall back into 
the pelvis, to the condition that would shut off the ileo-caecal 
valve and prohibit the continuous flow of the soft fluids into 
the colon. This is a successful method to unload the colon 



THE ABDOMEN. 1 93 

from the caecum to the rectum if there be twists, kinks, tel- 
escoping, adhesions to the bowels, or stoppage at the ileo-caecal 
valve by gall-stones or hard foreign substances that may have 
been swallowed. First raise the caecum from the pelvis to its 
normal position, then the transverse colon that may have fal- 
len ; also correct the left division to the sigmoid, which becomes 
an obstruction when it falls into the pelvis. I say at this point 
that the folds of the meso-caecum, meso-transversalis, and the 
meso-colon can generally be easily readjusted. Twists, kinks, 
and various obstructions to the passage of the fluids through 
the colon can be overcome and the obstruction cease to exist, 
and the normal action of the bowels brought about. 

Skill Necessary. 
I have given the student a general rule of procedure in 
cases of constipation, with the expectation that he will use 
some intellectual skill as he proceeds. The effects following 
the condition of the colon just described by the suspension of 
fluids from the small intestine, producing the class of mechan- 
ical irritations that accompany the impacted colon, will be 
given under the proper heading and place, diseases of the rec- 
tum, bladder, womb, kidneys, stomach, bowels, liver, pancreas, 
spleen, mesentery, and glands of the abdomen. 



CHAPTER IX. 



The Pelvis. 

Diseases of the Bladder. 

When we take up the diseases of an organ or vessel, such 
as the bladder, we must reason how such a part is made, by 
tracing out its nerve- and blood-supply. This being the case, 
we will go back to the first appearance of the bladder in the 
babe. We find the bladder to be a part of the peritoneum, 
or formed of the peritoneum. Then we go to the blood- and 
nerve-supply of the peritoneum, and look there for defects, 
because the failure to keep the system normal would naturally 
be found in the blood- and nerve-supply that give supply and 
force to the bladder. Thus the two supplies, blood and nerve, 
must be normal, or disease will show in the bladder, kidneys, 
and all organs of the body. 

The nerve-supply of the bladder is from the third and 
fourth sacral, and also the hypogastric plexus of the sympa- 
thetic. The arteries are the superior and inferior vesical, and in 
the female the uterine artery also. The veins are the radicals 
of the internal iliac. 

The Rectum. 
It is my object at this point, in seeking further causes 
for the diseases of the abdomen, to make another beginning- 
point, with the rectum, which presents various kinds of 
diseases. We have congestion, inflammation, ulceration, 
cancer, prolapse, piles, constricture, inversion, and dilatation 



THE PELVIS. 195 

following an interference of the nerve-power of the muscles of 
the anus, which fail to contract with force sufficient to keep 
the bowels in their normal position. Outside of the effects of 
poisonous substances that have removed the mucous mem- 
brane either by injection of such substances into the bowels 
or administered by way of the mouth — I say, outside of the 
poisonous effects of the drugs, we have inflammation, ulcera- 
tion, and so-called cancerous formations. 

Blood- and Nerve-Supply. 

We know from our anatomical knowledge that the lower 
bowel receives its blood-supply from the superior and inferior 
hemorrhoidal arteries. The nerve-supply governing arterial 
and venous circulation and lymphatics of this portion of the 
alimentary tract comes from the pelvic plexus. Neither the 
blood-supply nor nerve-force should be disturbed or suspended 
by mechanical or from other cause that would produce paralysis 
of the vessels or nerves while in receipt or discharge of the fluids 
intended to keep the rectum in a perfectly normal condition. 
When we investigate the blood- and nerve-force which has suf- 
ered a local suspension, we have two truths before us seeking 
our acquaintance. One is the blood- and nerve-supply, the other 
is the nerve-force and blood in return action. The one governs 
the arterial supply, the other the veins and excretories or drain- 
age. We are not justified in saying or thinking that we have 
given a wisely constructed or judicious opinion, and omit the 
most careful inspection with the eye, to detect any and all varia- 
tions from the perfect mechanical condition. Undisturbed rela- 
tions must exist in this part of the machinery, whose business it is 
to receive blood and construct and purify to the last atom every 
muscle, vein, and artery, even of the nerve itself. As we have 
found an unhealthy condition of the rectum, or that part of 
the bowel whose location is confined to the pelvis, it is wisdom 



196 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

to seek an acquaintance with mechanical causes that obstruct 
the flow of blood- and nerve-forces to and from the lowest parts 
of the rectum. At this point of exploration, we will consider 
the pelvic chamber as a cup or tub-shaped chamber, larger at 
the top than at the bottom. We must see and know that no 
infringement on this territory exists by the unnatural occu- 
pancy of this tub-shaped vessel by the caecum, which, as we 
have shown, is often driven into the pelvis by strains and jolts, 
and very often by the use of powerful purgatives, also follow- 
ing efforts to liberate the bowel from faecal matter or any 
chemical or irritating substances. If we find the caecum in a 
woman, by digital examination, occupying the pelvis, a condi- 
tion easily discovered through the vaginal wall, we have dis- 
covered one cause of pressure. When the mesentery has been 
pulled down by cross-pressure of heavy weights on the abdo- 
men, the caecum can be, has been, and will be pushed clear 
down into the pelvic chamber to the perineum, which your 
knowedge of anatomy guarantees to be a correct conclusion 
as to the abnormal position of that division of the colon. This 
knowledge should be sought at all times and under all circum- 
stances, when we have diseases of the rectum and their remote 
and immediate causes for consideration. Let us follow the 
fact that when the caecum has descended into the pelvis, it pulls 
heavily on the transverse colon, and it also irritates the nerv- 
ous system of the abdomen. In this condition, that division 
of the colon known as the sigmoid flexure can be thrown from 
its normal position in the left iliac fossa to the right, with 
the whole train ditched and piled up in the pelvis. A person 
of very superficial anatomical knowledge would know that the 
colon was badly ditched, when the wreck-train of inspection 
is put into active operation. We use the very common and 
well-known term "ditched," because our patient's bowels are 
ditched, and badly ditched, and we are expected to straighten 



THE PELVIS. 197 

the track and replace every car; otherwise we are worse than 
failures. Our patient will die a death that should be charged 
to our anatomical stupidity when we pose as skillful osteo- 
pathic mechanics. 

The Uterus. 

We will introduce the subject of diseases peculiar to woman 
by drawing memory to her organs which become temporarily 
deranged before she feels that she must call in skilled help. Let 
us open the subject with a few questions of vital importance in 
the search for facts that will support a positively correct diag- 
nosis, before we offer our services in her behalf with the hope 
of a cure, or before we will even make an effort to give her 
temporary or permanent relief. To assist the student in a 
cautious hunt and correct decision on the course to pursue to 
obtain such results, we will go to her abdominal house and 
see how it is furnished, and discover for what each part is 
intended, what it performs, and how, where, and through what 
blood-vessels supplies are delivered to keep each part normal 
in all particulars. Can an organ be normal and be starved? 
Can an organ be normal and be twisted, when it is naturally 
straight? Can an organ be normal and another organ prohibit 
the blood from coming to nourish that organ, to keep it strong 
and active, that it can do its own part and assist other organs 
when one depends much or little on the other for assistance? 
Can an organ do its part with other organs pressing on it too 
heavily? I have asked a few questions pertaining to organic 
action and life, because Nature is a school of questions and 
answers, which seems to be the only school in which man learns 
anything. This being true, we will make a list of woman's 
abdominal furniture and its location in the abdominal house. 
I need not give a list of the names, locations, and functions of 
the abdominal organs, because I think you know these; but I 



I98 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

will give the list, or nearly so, to keep them before your eye and 
assist you in recognizing the confusion that would make a 
tumor, leucorrhoea, cancers, etc., targets for allopathy to shoot 
at with speculum, probe, and caustic. We will begin above or 
at the upper beginning of the abdominal wall, the diaphragm. 
It is the dividing sheet or strong muscular wall suspended across 
the body at the lower end of the chest, separating the chest 
organs above from the abdominal organs below. Above this 
wall, we find the lungs and heart. Below, we find the pancreas, 
spleen, liver, kidneys, uterus, bladder, the stomach, and bow- 
els, both great and small. We find the aorta, vena cava, and 
their branches, running to and from each organ, all from the 
one artery. Then we see the organs drained by the vena cava 
and its tributaries. You see that the supply and drainage of 
all the organs below the diaphragm is a complete system, which 
shows great and perfect wisdom in the plan and purpose for 
which it was formed and placed in position, to do the separate 
and combined work of the abdominal host. When all do a 
perfect work, nothing but health can be shown as a result. No 
disease can possibly come to any of these organs while supply 
and drainage are absolutely perfect. 

Effects of Wounds. 

At this time we will change our point of observation and 
note a few effects of wounds inflicted upon any organ located 
in the abdomen. A congestion following changes of weather 
from hot to cold, dry to wet or damp, is a wound. The severity 
of the shock is shown by its effects on the organs, womb, blad- 
der, and others, by soreness of the abdomen or tenderness, a 
feeling of weight in the pelvis followed sooner or later by blad- 
der trouble, with a desire to pass water too often, followed 
by itching of the external parts of the vulva, and possibly 



THS PELVIS. 190 

hemorrhage. In young women, stopped flow, followed by 
monthly flooding, ulcers of the womb, polypi, headache, heart 
trouble, fits, insanity, cancer of the womb, prolapsus, and the 
growth of tumors, and so on to a long list of female troubles, 
any and all are possibilities from an injury to the womb that 
was hurt in-a fall, strain, jar, or shock produced by change of 
clothing or by atmospheric variations. 

As this is not a medical school, it would not be supposed 
that we would follow old-school teachings in giving relief. When 
medical schools find a growth or ulcer, they hunt for knife and 
caustic, cut and burn. You see at once that the theory is to 
combat the effect, and not the cause. We cure these diseases 
by subduing the cause that has produced such alarming effects 
as angry ulcers, cancers, tumors, and all diseases that assail 
woman. We must apply our mental and physical energies to 
the place in the spine controlling the blood-supply sustaining 
the life and health of the womb, the bladder, kidneys, liver, 
spleen, pancreas, lymphatics, and all parts of abdominal life. 
Otherwise we are at sea, with no compass to guide us. We 
leave our patients in the clutches of the beasts of prey, to be cut 
and slain by the heads and hands that lack knowledge of cause 
and effect. Medical practitioners chop off and cut out tumors, 
burn ulcers, and kill by the rule of cut and try, and hope for 
good results when there is nothing good to hope for. When all 
kinks are straightened out, giving the strong arm of Nature 
full charge of the work of righting all wrongs and establishing 
the normal, beyond which man knows nothing, then we can 
reasonably hope for recovery. 

Tumors. 
Tumors on the womb, by the old system, have been sim- 
ply looked upon as dead weights that are injurious and of no use 
to the woman, and the sooner such growths are cut off or burnt 



2o6 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES Otf OSTEOPATHY. 

out, the better for the woman. No doubt many growths, when 
first seen by the surgeon, have gone so far into decay that to 
remove is wise, and we, as osteopaths of good judgment, would 
proceed to operate and do the best we could to prolong life by 
removing any dead flesh whose fumes of decomposition would 
cause disease by their poisonous effects. But all diseases of 
the organs of the abdomen should have the wisest methods of 
osteopathy exhausted before the knife is invited to take a part 
in the effort to rescue the life of the patient. All have agreed 
long since that tumors and issues mark a cut-off in an artery, 
vein, or nerve. We are Americans, and have no time or pa- 
tience to spend with theories that have no practical sense in 
them, that we cannot use beneficially. If we have a duty to 
perform, we want to know what that duty is. If it is to put 
the organs of the abdomen in position and form to act, we want 
to know it, and no "howevers" about it. 

From Health to Disease. 
I wish now to give a picture of a healthy woman from 
childhood to womanhood, full of blood and full of life, quick 
in motion, active in mind, able to answer and act to all the 
functions of life. You must know what a healthy woman is 
before you can think and act wisely with the woman who has 
lost her health, say of her sight, hearing, affecting mind, face, 
nose, jaw, mouth, tongue, throat, stomach, bowels, liver, kid- 
neys, womb, bladder, vagina, heart, lungs, breasts, and all 
parts of a perfect woman. It is a perfect woman I want to 
present to your mind. The first thought of a successful osteo- 
path is perfection, and he must place in mind perfection of 
form and function of the woman and keep that picture bright 
in his mind 's eye all the time, or he will be a failure as a gynae- 
cologist all his days. Now let us begin with a little girl of five 
summers. Generally at that age she is a perfect picture of 



THE} PELVIS. 20t 

health, perfect in form and action. She has rosy cheeks, 
sparkling eyes, and silken hair. She runs, jumps, climbs, lauglis, 
sings, and talks from morn till night, sleeps, eats, and is a per- 
fect little machine of human life and action. Now she takes 
her first change in life by entering the poorly ventilated school- 
room. She is exposed to cold and contagions, sits on benches 
from two to six hours each day, drags her feet through mud, 
snow, and ice from six to nine months out of each year. She 
has later added to her studies the changes from childhood to 
womanhood. Much of the exercise that gave her brilliancy 
as a child has been taken from her, and- the active liberty that 
kept rosy her cheeks and gladdened her life changes to inaction, 
that weakens her whole body so much that she has lost the 
power to throw off a cold or the effect of changes from hot to 
cold, from wet to dry, and so on. Blood begins to circulate 
sluggishly in the brain. She has headache. The spine tires 
and she stoops forward, causing ribs to change position, closing 
intercostal arteries the whole length of the chest, and she has a 
heart under a great strain to force blood through the small 
arteries that run between the ribs from the aorta. Soon we 
hear of her as having heart trouble. With that organ disabled, 
she is a subject for other failures, such as lung diseases, spinal 
diseases, with all the resulting bad effects, as womb disease, 
and so on to the full list that follows. We have hastily passed 
through the life of the child to womanhood, and find that she 
has changed from a healthy child and girl full of life and vigor 
to a pitiable condition, sick and diseased all over. When we 
examined her as a child, we found a good and powerful brain, a 
healthy spinal cord, and all nerves full of life. As we stopped 
to view the throat, larynx, pharynx, trachea, and oesophagus, 
we found them perfectly healthy. A perfect glow of life was 
absolutely manifest. We are so well pleased with the perfec- 
tion of the form and workings of the parts of the machinery of 



202 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

a healthy girl that we conclude to stay in her body as an 
explorer. We will camp near the heart and lungs, to us two of 
the greatest wonders of the works of that unerring architect, 
God. I want to emphasize God, and give to Him the intelli- 
gence of a God, a God to be respected and followed to the let- 
ter by the doctors of my school. I am talking to the few or 
many who are not to be pitied for lack of brains to behold and 
comprehend perfection in the unabused machinery of life, let 
that abuse come from any causes whatsoever. 

Gynecology. 
For fear the student will think I have forgotten my sub- 
ject, the heart and lungs, I will ask him to refresh his mind on 
those organs of life by a mental review of what he has been 
carefully and extensively taught of those organs in descript- 
ive and demonstrative anatomy. Your grade-cards report 
that you have passed above 90 in both branches of anatomy, 
also in chemistry, urinalysis, histology, physiology, and the 
principles and practice of osteopathy. Honor bright, do you 
think you merit the high scale that appears upon all your 
cards? If you do, and have done your duty, you are ready to 
hear me upon one of the most important branches taught in 
the American School of Osteopathy— Gynaecology. Your stud- 
ies thus far have taught you that the throat, heart, and lungs, 
with all their attachments with parts of the machinery of life, 
are and have been dependent on the brain for power, and on 
the spinal cord for nerve-distribution. I will invite you to go 
with me from the chest down through the diaphragm to this 
young lady's common organs of life and procreation. Let me 
ask you to kindly refresh your mind upon the blood- and nerve- 
supply of the diaphragm, that great, vital, active, and most 
important wall of separation, situated between the bony chest 
and fleshy abdomen. I say, " refresh your minds upon the blood- 



THE PELVIS. 203 

and nerve-supply of the diaphragm," because of its uses and 
very important functional action upon the heart, lungs, and 
all organs above and below the separating line which it marks. 
It, too, with all the organs above, must be healthy in form and 
action ; therefore all blood- and nerve-supply must be absolute. 
If upon this examination we find the diaphragm worthy and 
well qualified to do the duties incumbent upon it, we will pass 
on and again pitch our tents, establishing ourselves upon the 
highest pinnacle of mental observation possible, a philosopher's 
constant aim when beginning his observations of the harmo- 
nies of Nature in all its works. After thoroughly acquaint- 
ing ourselves with the perfect works of Nature, we begin to 
fortify our reason by disturbing some part or many parts of 
the machine which has been doing perfect work. We will 
bend a shaft, slip a pulley, break a cog, slack a belt, throw dirt, 
sand, ashes, alkali, or any disturbing substance upon the jour- 
nals, in the boxes, or any place that will produce a known 
variation from perfect normality of the machine. We set it to 
work again, and then compare the difference between the nor- 
mal and abnormal. Thus his philosophy has given him an 
answer for both the normal and the abnormal, without which 
truth no philosopher can afford to commit philosophical sui- 
cide. Since we have seen the harmony that prevails below 
the diaphragm, we cannot do justice to the student and fail to 
examine the functions of those organs. We ask you at least 
to mentally run over the organs from your knowledge of anat- 
omy. Now make yourself a child of inquiry and a student of 
Nature. Turn your eyes upon the pancreas, which lies just 
below the diaphragm, and rehearse mentally or aloud its blood- 
supply and its nerve-supply. Ask such questions as these : Why 
has all this deposit of fat been placed at so important a center ? 
Is it possible that an oily compound is prepared in this little 
laboratory of animal chemistry and conducted to the liver to 



204 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

be mixed with chalk and other substances to prevent association 
of such substances to the dangerous degree of gall-stones? If 
so, a great duty falls upon us, to see to it that no disturbing 
causes appear that would damagingly affect the functioning of 
the pancreas. My eyes seem to settle next upon the liver, 
which is pointed out by my anatomical and physiological com- 
pass. Do you agree with me, or have you discovered greater 
truths by longer and deeper observation of the chemical labo- 
ratory beneath the diaphragm? Can we then afford to spend 
a few days and train our telescopes and microscopes of highest 
human skill upon the spleen, to observe the effect that would 
follow a crippling of the functions of that organ? Have we a 
functional derangement from nerve-disturbance that would 
cause the lymphatics to reverse their action of construction 
and throw albumin, fibrin, and watery fluids into the excre- 
tory ducts and destroy life by an exhausting drainage? Then 
we would be face to face with dyspepsia, dropsy, enlarged spleen, 
engorged liver, cancer, gall-stones, skin eruptions, change of 
color, constipation, inflammatory diseases, and ulceration of 
the stomach, bowels, kidneys, and the uterus. If we have 
observed the perfect, harmonious work of health, we are now 
prepared to adjust the machinery of life by taking all embar- 
rassments from blood- and nerve-supply that are caused or 
could be caused by strains, jars, and nervous shocks or wounds 
that are produced by change of season, climate, and physical 
injuries of all kinds, be they great or small. Your work is 
completed when you have adjusted the human body to the 
degree of perfection in which the God of Nature left it. This is 
the limit of your usefulness ; do your work well and you will get 
the results sought. Never grow weary in well-doing; we have 
proven that God is true. Drug systems have long since fallen 
in the minds of both men and women who have tested all the 
claims set forth and practiced by the medical schools of the 



The pelvis. 205 

world. If you have the ability to reason, you will be satisfied 
with the claims of osteopathy. 

The Importance of a Healthy Womb. 
The womb as a healthy organ would be classed as one of 
the most healthy organs of woman's system, because of the 
fact that there is perfect rest in its life from the time of baby- 
hood until about the age of fourteen. Previous to that no action 
or growth in size or function is taking place, farther than the 
organ is kept in existence by a system of small arteries and 
nerves, microscopic in size until womanhood sets in. At the age 
of about twelve or fourteen years activity for maternal function- 
ing begins to develop its size, with all the glands and append- 
ages necessary for maternal uses. All the time previous to 
this period in her life, no growth has seemed to be necessary 
and no change in quality or quantity of blood has had an 
opportunity to cause disease. Thus no great changes could 
occur while neither the blood- nor nerve-supply was changing 
in quantity, motion, or quality. I have given a history of the 
womb in girl-life when it was in the best of health, in order 
to get a foundation from which to reason when we consider 
the womb in its many conditions of disease, as in abnormal 
discharges, ulcers, tumors, variations from its normal place 
in health, cancers, wounds caused in childbirth by forceps, 
retained monthlies, prolapse, sterility, menopause, inversion, 
procidentia, etc. 

Diseases Peculiar to Woman. 
What diseases does woman have that man does not have ? 
Such diseases as belong to the womb and its appendages. Be- 
ginning with menses and on to pregnancy, delivery, care dur- 
ing and after labor, then variations in the position of the womb 
from normal, I wish to present her in both the healthy and the 
unhealthy condition. The osteopath, by his knowledge of 



206 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

her anatomical form and physiological functioning, can easily 
understand how and why she has changed from a healthy girl 
to a diseased woman. He can see how she becomes the mother 
of cancers, tumors, and deadly ulcers that spill her life-blood 
and cause her frame to yield in death. We must prepare our- 
selves for a very hard fight in her defense, or we will " lose out" 
and prove our inability to successfully combat the enemy. We 
must begin at her bones and know them, their uses and their 
places ; then the binding ligaments of all the bones, and in par- 
ticular her spine and pelvis. We must know them when nor- 
mal, and qualify our hands, eyes, and reason to know when 
and how to detect any slip of bone or muscle or ligament. We 
must reason and search until we know what effect would be 
produced on any organ of the chest or abdomen by an anterior, 
posterior, or lateral change of the atlas, axis, or other bones of 
the neck; what effect on the heart would follow the changed 
position of a rib or vertebra from the first to the twelfth dor- 
sal, the lumbar, sacrum, and innominates, because of a slip or 
change from the normal. Would it send more or less blood to the 
brain? The force would vary in proportion and allow the lungs 
to suffer loss of power in purifying the blood, and then a failure 
in the power of the heart would appear, and it would not be 
able to perform its functions ; then a stagnation of blood would 
appear in the liver, spleen, pancreas, and so on ad infinitum. As 
a result, we would have disease from congestion and sluggish 
action in the organs upon which a healthy womb has to 
depend for its vitality and functioning in its part of the labo- 
ratory of animal life. To be diseased, then, would be a natural 
consequence. Since we have a weak heart to propel the blood, 
a weak set of lungs to purify the blood, and the liver, spleen, 
kidneys, and lymphatics filled with fluids other than healthy, 
and slow in action from a feeble heart, we can expect a process 
of active fermentation to set up and create from perverted 



THE PELVIS. 207 

fluids exciting substances that will annoy the nerves to abnor- 
mal activities, causing fits, hysteria, insanity, growths, tumors, 
sloughing and bleeding surfaces or ulcers of various cancerous 
natures that whip up all the nervous forces of the heart to 
drive the blood to repair the ulcerations ; but when that blood 
arrives, it is poured out into space, because the blood -terminals 
are sloughed off. Cancers of the womb and bladder are found 
in their most malignant forms from causes above noted. The 
next thing to do is to set out to find the causes that produced 
those conditions. It matters not whether the cause is far 
remote or in close proximity to the uterus ; we must find it, or 
we will be found in the antediluvian tribe of speculum cranks 
of all the blind female doctors' ages. We must stand true to 
the light and reason of anatomy or join the mourners who wail 
because their tricks are not now nor ever have been trumps 
when battling for a woman's health under the old tree that 
has nothing but woodpeckers' holes in its trunk and limbs. 

Nature Our School. 
To-day is our day, Nature is our school, and we must go 
by the pointings of the compass. We can never improve old 
theories to the degree of truths. They are not based upon 
facts. When we turn our eyes and look back for truths, back 
from Nature, we only behold the dark clouds of dying theories, 
without a single friend to mourn their loss. In osteopathy we 
have the tree of life, and the living man in it. Our science sees 
him, our science has proven him to be a living man, proven him 
to be the work of a living God, a wise God, whose works are 
alive and show wisdom in form and purposes. We must learn 
that Nature means wisdom, means mental ability, means busi- 
ness honesty, and we must not disobey its teachings. Nature 
never made a philosopher. He made the man to learn and act. 
Man can make of himself a philosopher or fool. The schools 



208 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 






of Nature are all open and free to him. He can learn the les- 
sons and become wise if he obeys the teachers; otherwise he 
learns little and his knowledge is of little use all his days. He 
has missed his opportunities; he is mentally unprepared for 
duties as a leader and as a teacher ; he is only a slave to a the- 
oretical life. In him there is nothing that is really useful, more 
than perhaps an ability to operate a bucksaw, and not even 
good at that, because there is more practice in that operation 
than theory. He fails for want of theories. 

Anatomical Differences. 
In this talk on the diseases of woman, I think about the 
best method would be to state or line up the diseases with which 
she is most liable to be afflicted. In general forms, the woman 
is just the same as man. They both have btains, spine, and 
limbs, the same in form, location, and use. Both have heart, 
lungs, diaphragm, pancreas, liver, spleen, stomach, bowels, and 
kidneys. They are both the same, so far, anatomically. At 
this point the explorer begins to notice a difference in the form 
of muscles, nerve-supply, shape, and the functions of the gen- 
erative organs. At this time a mental halt is called. The 
mind finds that a new book opens to its view, and the student 
begins to ponder and question for light. What design could 
Nature have had in so wide a difference in the form and func- 
tions of these organs? He answers that question as best he 
may. With rapidity of thought and reason he then argues 
that as they differ in form and function, they will show the 
effect of diseases in a different manner from the organs com- 
mon to both sexes, such as brain, heart, and lungs. The reader 
comes to the conclusion that woman would be affected just 
the same as man in all parts except in the generative system, 
which is different from the man's. In man we find more kid- 
ney diseases and inflammations of different kinds, the effects 



THE PELVIS. 209 

of strains, lifts, falls, overwork, heat, cold, fevers of climate 
and change of season. But we cannot reason that disease will 
show the same effect on the general system of woman that is 
shown in the man, when both are not alike in form and parts. 
Undoubtedly reason has claimed our attention and forced us 
to see and conclude that we must look for that which her make- 
up points us to when she is sick. We know that disease is an 
effect of some action that is abnormally producing it, and when 
the normal chain is broken, we know that the brain obeys the 
law of stimulants and narcotics. With no intention or expec- 
tation to make an apology for the cause I have undertaken to 
champion, I raise my flag in open view before the world with 
the inscription in the blackest letters, " No Quarter!" for any 
theory or practice that has no respect for a woman 's modesty, 
no feeling whether she suffers much or little, is maimed for life, 
lives or dies, so she can be inveigled into a hospital to receive 
the torture of experimentation and death, or accidental recov- 
ery, by the hands of stupidity that are flourished by the pres- 
ent day gynaecologist, all for the amount of money that can be 
extorted from husband, father, or friends. I do object most 
emphatically to the every-day evidences of the bad teachings 
of the present-day medical institutions. Our school wants none 
of it. Our school has no use for its teachings. There is no 
osteopathy in it, and less truth. In behalf of the tortured, both 
living and dead, whose lives have been sacrificed boldly on the 
altar of the present-day teachings in gynaecology, on behalf of 
all womankind, I have raised the black flag of eternal ven- 
geance upon the brutal system of obstetrics and the treatment 
of woman's afflictions, from the school-girl up to the oldest 
mothers and grandmothers. We want none of it taught, none 
of it practiced in this school. This school was not created for 
a slaughter-house, neither will it be tolerated as such by the 
scrutinizing eyes of the, board of trustees. The suggestions of 



2IO PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

anatomy and physiology must be learned, must be taught, and 
must be practiced; then peace and harmony will prevail. My 
mother shall not be slaughtered ; my wife shall not be butch- 
ered, nor my daughter stripped and exposed 

Our Instruments. 
An osteopath who knows his business has no use for a spec- 
ulum, no use for a steel spindle or sound in the treatment of 
female diseases. Once in a thousand times the accoucheur's 
forceps may be admitted in case of pelvic deformity. Explo- 
rations and treatments by the osteopath who is worthy of the 
title D.O. should deliver nine hundred and ninety-nine chil- 
dren out of one thousand with no instrument but his hands; 
otherwise he is not fit to be trusted with birth of child and care 
of mother and offspring. It is not only a request and demand, 
but an order to be remembered, that osteopathy as a science 
is wholly independent of all other theories. Our works must 
show improvement or stop. Osteopathic truths can be taught, 
demonstrated, and practiced successfully and satisfactorily, 
and explained in words of the American language. Don 't look 
for others. Remember that at the end of four hundred years 
we have had selected and compiled in our dictionaries upwards 
of one hundred and fourteen thousand choice words for our 
use. We contend that they have a place in our finest litera- 
ture, equal to the best in the world. We can give the very best 
instruction with their use, and it is the object of our school to 
teach and practice the skilled arts of all branches with and 
through the words of our own language. We are not here to 
make a show of scholarship with words taken from the tongues 
of the antediluvian world. We are here to call a horse a horse, 
to demonstrate what we assert, and leave the results to be 
accepted or rejected by men and women who can and will think 
in the words of our own blessed language. An American should 
be proud of his country for having selected and compiled from 



THE PELVIS. 211 

the tongues of the world a sufficiency of words and phrases not 
equalled by any other tongue spoken now or in the days of the 
past. Cut out your Greek and Latin. " Talk United States." 

The Machine Gives Out. 
Does the woman get sick? Yes. Why and how does she 
get sick? Because she is a machine made for life's purposes, 
and that machinery gives out by wear and abusive care, or lack 
of knowing how to care for it. What parts are the most liable 
to get out of good operative conditions? One part is no more 
liable to get out of working order than any other. Is the womb 
more liable to become disabled than other parts? No; because 
it was made to do its work and no more. It has, occasionally, 
long-time jobs to do, which it must stay with and superintend 
for nine or ten months. Other organs have to feed the womb 
to order and on time while in this service or contract job. It 
is like a vessel of the sea after returning from a long voyage ; it 
has to report a very rough trip from start to return. When 
the ship goes in for inspection and repairs, she is dry-docked 
or raised out of the water, so that the master ship-builder can 
see her, learn how storms affected her hull, engine, boiler, and 
through a complete course of inspection, ocular, historical, and 
otherwise. He hands in his report: "She is not seaworthy, 
I find that all parts have suffered strains about equally, and it 
is a wonder that she has made the last trip when all parts have 
suffered almost to collapse. I have to report as inspector that 
a complete overhauling, leveling and plumbing, and rest for 
the crew is necessary, or another such voyage will mark a lost 
vessel." 

Examination. 
I have tried to tell the student that to do justice to gynae- 
cological service, he must be a workhand in the navy-yard of 
life, and must examine the whole vessel when she comes to the 



212 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

dock for repairs. It is not necessary to look at the bottom of 
the ship all the time. Look at all parts with equal energy. 
Go over the hull and see if holes or cracks let water come into 
the hull. Don't do anything to her till the doctor says, ' ' Endos- 
mosis." Go to the boiler, and if you find a leakage of steam, 
lay down your hammer and rivets until the master mechanic 
says, "This is a bad case of exosmosis." Then be careful to 
wait until the chief boss says, " Osmosis." Then go to work, 
for osmosis or action is what is needed on the ship. You need 
Greek words, a Yankee hammer, a Dutch pipe, and sense enough 
to know that vessels get strained all over and all parts need 
careful attention, before you go to work to put all in good sea- 
worthy shape, previous to her discharge out of dry-dock for 
another voyage. All combinations for the purpose of giving 
motion to this vessel must first be known, with instructions of 
how much repair is needed, before the subordinate workman 
is supposed to proceed with the work of repairs. After this 
wise precaution, the skilled workman has no difficulty in know- 
ing and doing the duties incumbent upon him. As no two 
vessels are likely to show the same effect from injuries received 
in storms, the important answer appears that no book of 
instructions can be writen by the wisest mechanic so perfectly 
as to reach the condition of any vessel that comes into the dock 
for inspection and repairs. One vessel may bump its bow 
against a large cake of ice, a stone, or another vessel, strain- 
ing every bolt and the whole vessel from top to bottom, length 
and width, receiving a universal shock or strain. Another 
vessel may strike a reef in a quartering position or any other 
angle of contact. The result could not be expected to be the 
same. If a boiler should blow out, a man-head or a steam-chest 
explode, the result would be expected to be different from other 
causes. Thus we behold effects, proceed to hunt the cause, 
and repair according to the demands indicated by the discov- 
ery of the cause that has produced the abnormality. 



THK PELVIS. 213 

I suppose we have no student who is worthy of a seat in 
the third or fourth term who is so stupid as not to be able to 
take up the woman and examine the surface of the body as an 
inspector would examine the spine or main beam of the vessel. 
He would see if that beam was stove up at either end from a 
shock or fall sufficient to slip any member of the spinal column 
from its true position, producing a bend or variation that would 
cause a suspension of healthy nerve- or blood-supply where 
force or nourishment were required to sustain the vital energy 
of organs of life, of muscle and motion. As a woman is the ves- 
sel that has come into port and gone into dry-dock for repairs, 
it is supposed that before we will commence any repairing we 
will carefully explore her spine, brain, lungs, heart, liver, and 
kidneys, omitting no part, and know that there is not complete 
harmony of action of all organs before we treat in a local way 
a prolapsed or diseased womb. It would be very un philosoph- 
ical to begin at the womb with our treatment and hope for 
good results, when the cause for its disability was at another 
point or place of nerve- and blood-supply. Right here I want 
to keep before you the arteries that nourish and supply the 
womb, and the nerves of sensation, motion, and nutrition of 
the organ, and the veins that convey the blood back to the 
heart. A short review of anatomy and physiology will refresh 
your minds on the important lessons on nerve- and blood- 
supply of the uterus and its appendages. As time is important 
to me and to you also, I will omit this minutiae. With a clear 
comprehension of anatomy and physiology, abnormal growths 
with their causes are easily comprehended. Bloody and other 
wastings, with their causes, can easily be known and success- 
fully relieved. 

The Normal and Abnormal. 

When we take up the diseases of woman as a subject of 
thought, we must confine them to her form, and that form in its 



214 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

most perfect condition. Then mentally we see a brain of perfect 
action in all its performances. We see a spinal cord with its 
army of life, all in motion, obeying all orders of a wonderful 
government, with every officer at the head of his division, 
repeating orders and having all work done to the finest rules of 
perfection. We must view her as perfection in all her form, 
her limbs all perfect for motion and their destined uses. Then 
take a stand for a bird's-eye view of all parts of her body. See 
that the liver, spleen, kidneys, and all internal organs are nor- 
mal in size and place. Go to the bones of the spine and ribs, 
see them and behold all as truly perfect. Then take a physio- 
logical view and see the functioning of perfect life in the labo- 
ratory of a perfect woman. We will take up the subject of her 
abnormal condition with the view of discussing the causes that 
have produced the changed condition of brain, lungs, heart, 
liver, spleen, kidneys, pancreas, bowels, stomach, uterus, or 
nervous system. If her brain, heart, lungs, and all her organs 
have once been perfectly healthy and normal in all their func- 
tionings, why have they failed, one at a time, in so many places, 
that the body as a whole becomes a perfect wreck ? Her brain 
was once perfectly healthy, ready to execute all duties that 
Nature required of it. The same was true of the lungs and all 
the other organs. Why has this great change given her abnor- 
mality in place of the harmony she at one time possessed? On 
examination, a slight disturbance is found in the lung, a tick- 
ling cough sets in and is continued with some gain in severity 
as months go on. There is a little quivering of the heart, and 
occasionally a lost beat in the pulse. Soon another disturb- 
ance appears; pain in the region of the liver, also on the left 
side in the region of the spleen. Then another break appears. 
An irregularity of the appetite is complained of, her stomach 
generates and throws off gas, and she looks pale and grows 
weakly. Finally she has added to these troubles misery and 






THE PELVIS. 215 

cutting pains in the region of the kidneys. After a few weeks 
or months in this condition, she reports that her monthlies are 
not acting on regulaar time; that she suffers a great amount 
of pain in the lower abdomen, with blood flowing until she can 
scarcely walk. She consults a medical doctor, and he very 
wisely tells her that she has a bad case of ovaritis; that the 
leukocytes of the epithelial tissue of the vulva must be exam- 
ined per vaginam with a speculum at once, and that he must be 
quick about it. She is turned up in the Sims position, then 
on genupectoral position of exposure, and is told she must 
undergo an operation. She is sent off to some doctor who 
treats, cures, and kills, all for the dollars there are in it. The 
doctor who sends her in for the operation in nine cases out of 
ten gets one-half of the five hundred dollars. Then the min- 
ister gets ten dollars as her " sky pilot." It is not necessary 
to tell you this is true. You know that it is true. We want 
no such sins placed to our credit when Gabriel calls for our 
books. 

Treatment. 
The student asks the question, "How would you treat 
womb troubles?" The osteopath of skill can easily give the 
answer; he is trained to treat such troubles. The first step is 
to open the back door and throw out your speculum, probes, 
pessaries, syringes, dopes, and medicated cotton. Then begin 
at the nerves that caused her the first little hacking cough, and 
stay with an exploring eye and hand placed on the neck and 
upper dorsal until the cut-off is found that stopped the normal 
blood- and nerve-supply and caused constricture of the respir- 
atory pipe from her mouth to her lungs. Make them take 
their places. Then you are ready to drop the lungs and look 
for the nerve- and blood-supply of the heart. Now you are 
ready to give her liver, spleen, pancreas, kidneys, and lym- 
phatics a visit, as an ^explorer who has use for the most 



2l6 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

exacting and most thorough study of the true physiological 
perfection of the functions of the organs named. He has no 
business with her womb until he has stopped and booked 
practical knowledge at all points torn down by the disease that 
began at the lungs and prepared the womb to fail to perform 
its normal functions. I have just supposed a case, beginning 
at the lungs with only a slight cough, and followed its progres- 
sive effects from a simple cold through all the organs of the 
body, and found them giving way, one at a time, in quick or 
slow succession, until all were wounded or diseased, before the 
womb succumbed and became alarmingly diseased. I have 
tried to show you that the womb disease was only an effect, 
and the cause of its weakness was due to organs that it 
depended upon for health and strength. They had lost their 
power to keep the womb well nourished; the womb itself was 
not at fault in the cause of the disease. We have given you a 
case of womb disease, a dangerous ulceration of mucous mem- 
brane, to show the students how to hunt and find the begin- 
ning or remote causes that the doctor should always have in 
mind when he takes a case for treatment. Ever remember 
that ulcers, tumors, leucorrhoea, hemorrhages, and delayed or 
retained monthlies are all the results of preceding causes, that 
affect the womb by contracting its outlet by a constant irri- 
tation of the circular nerves of the os. This irritation may be 
caused in bony alteration in the spine between the eighth dor- 
sal vertebra and the coccyx. Defects of the spine and sacrum 
in their articulations have caused strictures of the mouth of 
the womb. An M.D. will tell her to get on his table, give her 
Sims ' or some other pet position, and then, after exploring her 
person, insert a speculum and push into the womb a pair of 
dilating tongs, tearing the womb open. We have no use for 
such indecent exposure or the stupid operator. We correct 
articulations in the spine, bones of the pelvis, and organs of the 



THE PELVIS. 217 

abdomen, and take away by that method all irritation from 
the constrictor nerves and the vaso-dilators We have no need 
for tongs to let monthly fluids now easily from the womb. You 
must drop the tool idea. It is the breech-clout of the obsolete 
past, and is only kept up by ignorance of what a woman is. 

Whites, Leucorrhcea. 
A few sensible Americanized questions and answers, such 
as : What is the disease you call leucorrhoea or whites ? Why 
do you call it leucorrhoea? Does leuco mean something that 
is white ? Why do you give nothing but big names and leave 
out causes? Why does she waste off or out that white com- 
pound? Our old authors have never told us a word that 
would point the student to the cause of such wasting of the 
bread and meat of a woman's life. Is not her blood the bread 
and meat that sustain her life? If so, what effect would be 
natural to take away her life support? How high up her back 
and how low down on her sacrum will the student find 
nodes or clusters of lymphatics, glands, blood-supply, fascia, 
muscles, membranes, cells, secretions, and excretions, venous 
drainage, and arterial supply? In a word, why are we sum- 
moned to learn how to cure an affliction on whose cause you 
can give us no light? As this is said to be a school of philos- 
ophers, where is the philosophy you have to offer the anxious 
seeker? When the pilot gets lost, then a committee of the 
whole is formed and suggestions are in order, from all or any- 
one. A new pilot is sought. Trouble is in the camp, a remedy 
is demanded. The life of the old pilot will pay the penalty. 
A mutiny is in all the camps. A Moses must be found to lead. 
No old field-notes will suit for guides. We have followed them 
to the letter. We are lost, and to follow farther will be suicidal. 
"Nature's compass must guide us," is the report of the com- 
mittee of the whole. Now let Moses tell what leucorrhoea is, 
and its cure. 



2l8 philosophy and principles op osteopathy. 

Dropsy. 

The woman has dropsy to contend with. That does not 
come from her lungs (a dropsical condition often comes in con- 
sumption as a final wind-up). In case a patient with dropsical 
swelling of body and limbs should come to you for examina- 
tion, I would advise a careful one, beginning with the atlas. 
Be very careful to know that it is true with the skull in all 
positions. A slip of the odontoid process over the transverse 
ligament would place the atlas on a lateral and downward 
pressure on the lymphatic nerves just below the axis. A fail- 
ure of the cellular action would follow, and lymphatic and cell- 
ular membrane would retain water and other fluids in the lung 
muscles and the heart and pleura. Thus a beginning is estab- 
lished for general dropsy. Now follow up the process of crippling 
other nerves below, to the full extent of the body and limbs. 
A break of the articulations of the upper dorsal will cut off the 
powers of all nerves of supply and drainage below the point of 
broken perfection. Then you have a cause for enlargement of 
the liver, spleen, kidneys, and all organs below the diaphragm. 
The time to reason is the time when we are in prison, badly 
treated, and want to get out. The time has come for all fairly 
good thinkers to think themselves out of Osier, Byron Rob- 
inson, Shaley, and all prisons of torture. 

In speaking to students on the subject of the uterus, giv- 
ing its abnormal conditions, such as tumors, cancers, and other 
growths that change the uterus from the healthy to the un- 
healthy, we presented first the normal, healthy uterus as a guide 
to the knowledge of the differences between the healthy and 
the unhealthy womb. The object of the doctor is to relieve 
when employed to treat the abnormal uterus. He should at 
all times hold the picture of the normal uterus before his mind, 
as to form, size, and location, its blood- and nerve-supply. It 
would, as I consider it, be quite useless to consume your time 



THE PELVIS. 219 

on descriptive anatomy at this point, farther than to say that 
the blood-supply of this organ comes mainly from the ovarian, 
internal pudic, and uterine arteries. We will simply mention 
the sympathetic plexuses, with the lumbar, lower dorsal, and 
sacral nerves in their relation to the uterus, constituting its 
nerve-supply, and the importance of having the venous system 
perfectly undisturbed, that it can easily pass the venous blood, 
whose vitality has been exhausted while in the service, into 
the vena cava through its ordinary route to the heart, previous 
to being thrown into the lungs for final mixture with air and 
lymph, at which place it receives the nutriment for new blood, 
to be returned to the heart for general distribution. We are 
in full view of two channels that become obstructed previous 
to the growth of any tumor or malformation of the uterus, ova- 
ries, Fallopian tubes, or any parts of this system. These two 
channels in which the venous blood and the lymph can be 
checked or stopped are known to us as the lymphatic and ven- 
ous channels. How they are stopped in transit long enough to 
do mischief with and in the vicinity of these organs is the ques- 
tion that we must solve, or grope in the dark with no certainty 
of good results in banishing the oppressive causes of uterine 
deformities. We can reason that if we ligate a uterine artery ; 
we have cut off nutrition and the organ becomes atrophied or 
shrunken. Then, on the other hand, if we stop the venous 
return by ligation, either with a cord or compress, and have 
left the arterial circulation undisturbed, the venous blood will 
accumulate and unite with the lymph and become a nucleus 
for tumors of various dimensions, which could not have had 
existence had the blood- and nerve-systems not been disturbed 
by being shut off 

Cause of Uterine Disturbances. 
With this knowledge of the form and functions of the uter- 
us and all that belongs to it, we are prepared to seek and know 



220 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

the cause of uterine disturbances. A successful healing of the 
uterus and its appendages depends wholly upon the nutriment 
delivered by the artery, the drainage by the venous system, 
and the unobstructed nerve-force necessary to normal uterine 
health. Now let us proceed to hunt for the causes that would 
interfere with the harmony of the blood- and nerve-systems of 
the womb. Let us force the caecum, which is two or three 
inches in diameter, into the pelvis down to the level with the 
perineum, and drag the uterus down by the side of the rectum 
in a position between the rectum and caecum. Pile the small 
intestine and mesentery on top of the uterus when wedged 
down into the pelvis in this position; then from the left side 
bring the sigmoid colon with its contents on top of this heap ; 
then have a dropping toward the pelvis of the transverse colon. 
You have a heavy strain on the mesentery of the descending 
colon and transverse and caecum, all pointing and settling down 
with their contents upon the uterus. We see at once a system 
of ligation of all the uterine blood-vessels and nerves, except- 
ing the uterine arteries, which continue to pump arterial blood 
into the muscles and membranes of the uterus. Thus we have 
a cause for unlimited growth, and we can expect tumors, and 
would be very much disappointed if we did not find them. If 
we wish to reduce the tumor, we must proceed to remove the 
obstructing causes, with the expectation of relieving and 
reducing the abnormal growths through natural channels of 
drainage. One would say, ' ' How large a tumor can be reduced 
by the natural drainage?" I cannot answer that question. I 
have reduced a number whose diameter was from four to six 
inches, without the use of the surgeon's knife. I am satisfied 
that some tumors are not reducible, from the fact that they 
have passed the point of vital response before applying for a 
osteopathic treatment. 



the pelvis. 221 

Less Haste with the Knife. 

Let me ask the surgeon of our gynaecological department 
not to be too hasty in the use of the knife, when a supposed 
tumor of the ovaries, uterus, or Fallopian tubes appears. Re- 
member that life is very sacred and the responsibility is great, 
and that wisdom is often cautious procrastination. We want 
to know to a certainty that the only hope to save life is in the 
use of the knife before we use it. We should prove by skill, 
time, and patience that all the organs of the abdomen have 
been adjusted and kept in their normal places, to do their full- 
est and best work in carrying off all fluids that can be taken 
away from the tumor by the excretories of the uterus and all its 
appendages. The blood and lymph that is being delayed by 
any ligatory cause must move on, be that in the mesentery, 
omentum, or bowels, caused by having been twisted, folded, 
or fallen into the pelvis by lifts, strains, or irritable effects of 
drugs. We must remember that no tumor can form without 
a cause, and that the cause is surely a break in the action of 
one or more of the organ's nerves or blood-vessels. We know 
that no tumor can be made from nothing, and we also know 
that blood brings all the substances that are found in the make- 
up of all tumors. We will reason that if we do not want it to 
grow larger, we must know the blood-vessels that bring the 
blood by which it is being built will go on until the blood stops 
coming or passes away by the veins or excretories. 

Make your diagnosis exhaustive before you are satisfied 
that there is an abnormal growth in the vicinity of or on the 
uterus. We should be very careful about it, from the fact that 
faecal deposits in some divisions of the colon have the appear- 
ance of a tumor, and these should be investigated before the 
diagnosis is announced of a uterine tumor. Preparatory to 
exploring for tumors of fleshy growths or deposits of faecal mat- 
ter in the colon, we recommend placing the patient in the knee- 



222 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

and-chest position, with the chest for ease and comfort resting 
on a pillow, allowing the chin to hang over the head end of the 
table. Pass the right hand across the body in the lumbar region 
and under the abdomen to the right iliac fossa. Then place 
the right hand flat upon the bowels from the pelvis, with the 
left hand pressing gently on that part of the abdomen. Be 
slow and gentle in all movements, for fear of bruising the cae- 
cum, ileo-caecal valve, and the mesentery of that region. Make 
a gentle, strong pressure upward toward the ribs with the 
ascending colon. Follow across the abdomen from right to left, 
in order to straighten up the transverse colon to its normal 
position. Then lay the hand back toward the symphysis and 
gently press the sigmoid division toward the stomach, with a 
view to pulling that division of the colon and small intestine 
out of the pelvis. Then, with both hands gently and firmly 
pressed upon the anterior region of the abdomen, come up 
toward the stomach with this gliding motion, with a view to 
straightening the bowels, from the caecum to the transverse, 
the descending and sigmoid division to the rectum. Also 
adjust the mesentery in all its attachments both to the large and 
small intestines, and give freedom to the ileo-caecal valve, that 
the softening fluids may pass without delay into and through 
the colon. By so doing, we set at liberty and give freedom to 
the blood- and nerve-supply of the uterus, ovaries, and Fallo- 
pian tubes. We also take all pressure off the nerves which gov- 
ern the uterus and venous motion of blood from the pelvis and 
through the whole uterine system of blood, nerves, and lym- 
phatics, in the hope that proper reduction of uterine growths 
may be the result following excretory action of the uterus and 
its normal functioning process ; also that the hardening faeces 
may be softened and passed out with the assistance of the 
fluids penetrating the colon after being set free from the small 
intestine after passing the ileo-caecal valve in the colon. This 



THE PELVIS. 223 

treatment should be followed every two or three days until the 
abdominal viscera become normal in action and abnormal 
bulks have passed away through the universal excretory sys- 
tem of the abdomen, with all of which you are well acquainted 
by your knowledge of anatomy and physiology. Don 't fail to 
persevere in well-doing. 

Tumefaction. 

Webster's definition of "tumefaction" is: "To swell by 
any fluids or solids being detained abnormally at any place in 
the body." 

The location may be in or on any part of the system. No 
part is exempt. The brain, heart, lungs, liver, stomach and 
bowels, bladder, kidneys, uterus, lymphatics, glands, nerves, 
veins, arteries, skin, and all membranes are subject to swellings 
locally or generally, and with equal certainty they perish and 
shrink away. If either condition should exist, death to the 
parts or all of the body will occur from want of nutrition ; for 
instance, in lung fever, which begins when swelling is established 
in the lymphatics of the lungs, trachea, nostrils, throat, and 
face. We find the nerve-fibers compressed to such a degree 
that they cannot operate the excretories of the lungs or any 
part of the pulmonary system. The blood in veins is sus- 
pended by irritation of the nerves, and arteries are excited to 
fever heat with the increase of the tumefaction. A tumefying 
condition undoubtedly marks the beginning of all catarrhal dis- 
eases. Its ravages extend to diseases of the fall and winter 
seasons. They are so marked on examination that the most 
skeptical cannot dispute or doubt the truth of this position. 

The medical doctor looks on, and treats winter diseases 
with powerful purgatives, sweats, blisters, and uses hot and cold 
applications with a view to removing congesting fluids. He is 
not very certain which team of medical power he can depend 
upon. He hitches up various kinds of drugs, hoping that a few 



224 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

of them may be able to carry trie burden. He bridles his horses 
with opium, loads them down with purgative powders, and 
whips them through with castor oil, and for fear they will not 
travel fast enough, he uses as a spur a delicately formed instru- 
ment know as the hypodermic syringe. He punches and 
prods until his horses fall exhausted. Disease and death should 
give him a large pension for the assistance he has rendered in 
their service. All is guess-work, whose father and mother are 
"tradition and ignorance." It is ignorance of the kind that is 
wholly inexcusable to anyone but a medical doctor. An osteo- 
path who does not understand the general law of tumefaction 
is a failure because of the fact that tumefaction, disease, and 
death are so plainly written on the face of all diseases that the 
blind need not have eyes to see, nor the philosopher any brain 
to enable him to know this foundation is the highest known 
truth of all man's intellectual possessions. Thus, by the law of 
tumefaction, death can and does succumb to its indomitable 
will. Observation will show any fair-minded person that tume- 
faction causes death in the majority of cases. But another 
power is equally as effective in destruction of life, which is just 
the reverse of tumefaction. It destroys by withholding nutri- 
tion and all of the fluids, and the effect is starvation, shrinkage, 
and death. Thus you see it is equally certain in results. In 
the one case death ensues from an overplus of unappropriated 
fluids of nutrition ; in the other there is no appropriation to sus- 
tain animal life, and the patient dies from starvation. The 
same law holds good in any part as well as in the whole body. 



CHAPTER X. 



Fevers, 



What Are Fevers? 

Bilious fever, yellow fever, chills and fever, and every name 
and grade of fevers are effects of interrupted or perverted 
physiological functioning. 

Drugs a Failure. 

With my fifty years of experience in treating disease in its 
great multitude of forms, I feel that I am competent to speak 
of the weakness of drug medication theories and the drug med- 
ication training followed in the so-called "old schools of medi- 
cine." I was a disciple of the "old school" for many years and 
among its most faithful practitioners, until a better intelligence 
and a better understanding of God 's provisions for the cure of 
human ills in the body mechanism itself led me to sever the ties 
that once held me blindly to drug medication. 

Typhoid fever, bilious fever, yellow fever, scarlet fever, 
mountain fever, hectic fever, and all other fevers known by 
various names, are simply effects with different appearances; 
but to seek and to know the cause or causes that produced the 
effects has ever been lost sight of by the doctors of the "old 
school." No attention, or very little, if any, has ever been 
given to the parts of the body in a search for physical changes 
that have caused unnatural conditions in functions. They 
have been drilled in the faith that symptoms, well known, con- 
stitute a sufficient wisdom with which to open the fight. The 



226 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

drug physician finds some "heat" in the patient. He thinks 
that if he learns how "hot" his patient is, he then is in a 
position prepared to open the combat. He feels for his ' ' pig- 
tail thermometer," and lo! he finds that it has slipped through 
a hole in his pocket and is lost. And the owner of the ther- 
mometer is just as totally lost. 

The M. D.'s training is largely limited to observation of 
pulse and temperature. In the case of fever he has been loaded 
up with the importance of finding out how "hot" his patient is 
in the morning and how much hotter he gets at night, on through 
the days as the disease grows older in days and weeks. He is 
exhorted to keep a record of the degrees of heat, two, four, six, 
twelve, and twenty-four hours apart, and keep a similar tab on 
the pulse. He has been well drilled in the use of his unclean 
thermometer that goes into the rectum, the vagina, under the 
arm, and then into the mouth of a patient, but no thought is 
given to the physical changes of form or the functions of the 
affected organs of the body. Nor is the student of that school 
shown the causes of the change in temperature and pulse. His 
leading guides stick in their examinations and diagnosis to the 
pulse. He pulls out his watch and times the beats of the heart 
at 6 a. m., writes 83; at 6 p. m., 85; next day at 6 a. m., 84; at 
night, 87; and so the record of gains or losses goes on. 

He has learned to tell what his patient's temperature is 
each day for a week ; how much headache or limbache he has 
had; how body-tired and how sore he has been; how thirsty 
he was; how many times the bowels moved in twenty-four 
hours; how yellow, brown, red, or furrowed the tongue has 
been on the first, the fifth, seventh, ninth, and fifteenth days; 
but he has never been told by his school that these symptoms 
are only the effects and not the cause of disease. 

"Now we have the symptoms, and we will put them all in 
a row and name the disease," says the medical doctor. "We 



FEVERS. 227 

will call it typhoid, bilious, or by some other name before we 
begin to treat it. Now that we have named it, we will run out 
our munitions of war and pour in hot shot and shell at each 
symptom." The command is given, " Throw into the enemy's 
camp a large shell of purgative, marked 'hydrargyri chlo- 
ridum mite.' " Then the order comes to stop that groaning 
and those pains. "Fire a few shots into the arm with a hypo- 
dermic syringe loaded with a grain of morphine/ ' is the next 
command. Then one might add, "Look at the pigtailum oftenum 
and note the temperum till it reaches 106." But he is given 
no idea of the cause of the trouble on which to reason. 

An Array of Truths. 
The above is given as an array of truths from start to fin- 
ish. My object is to draw the mind of the student of osteop- 
athy to the necessity of his thinking well as he reads books on 
diseases written by medical authors. One of the requirements 
of the old school, and one on which so much stress is laid, is the 
knowledge of symptomatology by which they are first to name 
the disease, the name to give them a foundation on which to 
build the course of treatment by drugs. Their books gener- 
ally begin by telling us that fever is an abnormal heat that 
shows a degree of abnormality beginning at about 99 degrees 
Fahrenheit, and often running to 105 and 106 degrees. These 
effects are told and pointed out in detail, and if a certain amount 
of symptoms are found in a case, that case must be called typhoid 
fever and treated by the sacred rules laid down centuries ago 
for the treatment of that disease. Still they tell us that "they 
are self -limited diseases." Then they take up other fevers 
whose symptoms are similar in so many respects that one is 
puzzled to know what name to give the disease. He does 
not find quite enough symptoms to warrant him in calling it 
typhoid fever. Then he is at sea without a compass and is left 
to do the best he can, even though boat and crew may be lo&' 



228 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

We are in the beginning of the twentieth century, and the 
wisest doctors of all our schools and systems of the healing art 
have said that typhoid fever is "a self -limited " disease, in the 
treatment of which "drugs are a total failure." This, in sub- 
stance is the conclusion of them all, excepting the most big- 
oted, and we believe that the conclusion is an honest and a wise 
one. The old-school physician is now saying, "Keep out the 
drugs and bring in the nurses." And I will say, that they give 
to the world no more light on any other fever, and no more hope 
to succeed with drugs in the treatment of any other fever. I 
believe that they have turned on their very best searchlights 
and ploughed through every possible sea in their hunt for the 
wise god of drugs, and all in vain. 

I have been your leader for nearly thirty years, but I have 
had no books to guide me excepting those on descriptive and 
demonstrative anatomy, and those few in such crude form that 
they only suggest the wondrous provision that the God of 
Nature has placed in man with which to ward off or banish the 
cause of disease, if man were only studious and would only learn 
enough to detect the variations, and readjust the deviations 
back to the normal. I have long since believed that an engin- 
eer of the human body was the sick man's only hope, and to 
become a competent engineer the student must become mas- 
terly proficient in the knowledge of all the parts of that won- 
derful machine and the functions of all its parts. Not only to 
know the anatomical forms and positions of the parts, but to 
thoroughly know the entire system, the head, neck, chest, abdo- 
men, pelvis, and limbs, with each separate function, and all 
functions in harmonious combination, free to perform their 
work as Nature had planned for man's health and comfort. 

Begin with Facts. 
When we reason for causes, we must begin with facts, and 
hold them constantly in line. It would be a good plan for you 



FEVERS. 229 

never to enter into a contest unless your saber is of the purest 
steel of reason. With the best only can you cut your way to 
the magazine of truth. 

As we line up to learn something of the causes of fever, we 
are met by heat, a living fact. Does that put the machinery 
of your mind in motion? If not, what will arouse your men- 
tal energy? You see that heat is not like cold. It is not 
a horse with eyes, head, neck, body, limbs, and tail, but it is 
as much of a being as a horse. It is a being of heat. If cause 
made the horse and cause made the heat, why not devote 
energy in seeking the cause of both? 

Who says heat is not a union of the human gases with oxy- 
gen and other substances as they pass out of the excretory sys- 
tem? By what force do parts of the engine of life move? If 
by the motor power of electricity, how fast must the heart or 
life-current run to ignite the gases of the body and set a person 
on fire to fever heat? If we know anything of the laws of elec- 
tricity, we must know that velocity modulates its tempera- 
ture. Thus heat and cold are the effects. If we understand 
anatomy as we should, we know man is the greatest engine 
ever produced, complete in form, an electro -magnet, a motor 
which would be incomplete if it could not burn its own gases. 

On Fere. 

When man is said to have fever, he is only "on fire" to 
burn out the deadly gases which a perverted, abnormal lab- 
oratory has allowed to accumulate by friction of the journals 
of his body or in the supply of vital fluids. We are only com- 
plete when normal in all parts; a true compass points to the 
normal only. 

When reasoning on the fever subject, would it not be rea- 
sonable to suppose that the lowest perceptible grade of fever 
requires a less additional physical energy to remove the cause 



23O PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

from the body, which at first would show a very light effect 
upon the system, with an effect of simply an itching sensation? 
Might not this effect come from obstructed gases that flow 
through and from the skin? If gas should be retained in the 
system by the excretory ducts, closing the porous system, 
it would cause irritation of nerves and increase the heart's 
action to such a degree that the temperature would be raised 
to a fever heat by the velocity with which electricity is brought 
into action. Electricity is the force that is naturally required 
to contract muscles and force gases from the body. 

Let us advance higher in the scale until we arrive at the 
condition of steam, which is more dense than gas. Would it 
not take more force to discharge it? By the same rule of rea- 
soning we find water to be much thicker as an element than 
either gas or steam. 

Then we have lymph as another element, albumin, fibrin, 
with all the elements found in arterial and venous blood, all 
of which would require forces to circulate them, pass them 
through and out of the system. Therefore we are brought to 
the conclusion, that the different degrees of temperature mark 
the density of the fluids with which the motor engine has to 
contend. If gas produces an itching sensation, would it not 
be reasonable to suppose that the consistence of lymph would 
cause elevations on the skin, such as nettle-rash? 

We Are Led On. 
If this method of reasoning sustains us thus far, why not 
argue that albumin obstructed in the system of the fascia would 
require a much greater force to put it through the skin? The 
excretions of the body would cause a much greater heat to even 
throw the albumin as far as the cuticle. Why not grant this 
a cause of the disturbance of motor energy equal to measles? 
Let us add to this albumin a quantity of fibrin. Have we not 



FEVERS. 231 

cause to expect the energy hereby required to be equal to the 
nerve- and blood-energy found in smallpox? If this be true, 
have we not a foundation on which to base the conclusion that 
the difference in forces manifested is the resistance offered by 
the differences in the consistency of devitalized fluids which 
the nerves and fibers of the fascia are laboring to excrete? 

By close observation the philosopher who is endeavoring 
to acquaint himself with the laws of cause and effect finds upon 
his voyage as an explorer that Nature acts for wise purposes, 
and shows as much wisdom in the construction and prepara- 
tion of all bodies, beings, and worlds as the workings of those 
beings show when in action. As life, the highest known prin- 
ciple sent forth by Nature to vivify, construct, and govern all 
beings, it is expected to be the indweller and operator, and one 
of the greatest perceivable and universal laws of Nature. When 
it becomes necessary to break the friendly relation between 
life and matter, Nature closes up the channels of supply. It 
may begin its work near the heart, at the origin of the greatest 
blood-vessels, or do its work at any point. It may begin its 
closing process at the extremities of the veins, or anywhere that 
exhausted vital fluids may enter on their return to the heart 
for renewal by union with new material. 

As Nature is never satisfied with incompleteness in any- 
thing, all interferences, from whatsoever cause, are sufficient 
for Nature to call a halt and bring the necessary fluids, already 
prepared in the chemical laboratory, to dissolve and wash away 
all obstructing deposits, previous to beginning the work of re- 
construction and the repair of the injured parts of the machin- 
ery disabled by atmospheric changes, poisons, or otherwise. 

Perfection in Nature. 
When Nature renovates, it is never satisfied to leave any 
obstruction in any part of the body. All the powers of its bat- 



232 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

teries are brought into line for duty, and never stop short of 
the completeness that ends in perfection. All seasons of the 
year come and go, and we see, year in and year out, the per- 
petual processes of construction of one class of bodies and the 
passing away of others. Vegetation builds forests ; cold builds 
mountains of ice, later to be dissolved and sent into the ocean 
to assist in purifying the water and keeping the brines from 
drying to salt. 

All the processes of earth-life must be in perpetual motion 
to be kept in a healthy condition; otherwise the world would 
wither and die and go to the tombs of space to join the funeral 
procession of other dead worlds. All nature comes and goes 
by the fiat of wisely adjusted laws. Read all the authors from 
^sculapius to this date, and leave the inquirers without a single 
fact as to the cause or causes of fever. One says fever may 
come from too much carbon; another says chemical defects may 
be the cause. I would like to agree with some of the good men 
of our day or the ancient theorists if I could, but they, both 
dead and alive, are a blank. Tons of paper have been covered 
with them by conjectures, and closed with the words ''perhaps" 
and "however." All have explored for centuries for the cause 
of fevers, and on the return from their voyages say: "We 
hope some day to find the cause. We have done considerable 
killing, experimenting, but have failed to find the cause of 
fever." 

Degrees op Heat. 

To think of fever, we think of animal heat. By habit 
we want to know how great that heat is. We measure it with 
a thermometer until we find we have ioo degrees, 102, 104, to 
106 degrees. At this point we stop, as we find too much to 
suit life, which we think cannot consume more than 106 degrees 
of heat. We begin to ask for the substances that are more 
powerful than fire. We try all known fire compounds and fail. 



FKVKRS. 233 

The fire department has done faithful work, and has brought 
all it could bring to bear on the fire. It had used stream after 
stream of water, but the fire had ruined the house, with all its 
inside and outside usefulness and beauties. Another and 
another house gets on fire and burns as the first one did. All 
are content to look at the ruins and say that it is the will of 
the Lord, never thinking for a moment it was with the aid of 
the heart that the brain burned up the body. 

Of what use is a knowledge of anatomy to a man if he over- 
looks cause and effect in the results obtained by the body ma- 
chinery? He finds each part connected to all the others with 
the wisdom that has given a set of plans and specifications that 
are without a flaw or omission. The body generates its own 
heat and modulates it to suit the climate and season. It can 
generate heat through its electro-motor system far beyond the 
normal, to the highest known fever heat, and is capable of mod- 
ulations far below the normal. A knowledge of osteopathy 
will prepare you to bring the system under the rulings of the 
physical laws of life. Fever is electric heat only. 

Both Guess- Work. 
Semeiology is defined as, ' ' The science of the signs or symp- 
toms of disease.'' Symptomatology is defined as, "The doc- 
trine of symptoms; that part of the science of medicine which 
treats of the symptoms of disease. Semeiology." These defi- 
nitions are from Webster's International Dictionary. Both 
words represent that system of guess-work which is now and 
has been used by medical practitioners as a method of ascer- 
taining what disease is or might be. It is supposed to be the 
best method known to date to classify or name diseases, after 
which guessing begins in earnest. What kinds of poisons, 
how much and how often to use them, and then guess how 
much good or how much harm is being done to the sick person. 



234 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

To illustrate more forcibly to the mind of the reader that 
such a system, though honored by age, is only worthy the 
term " guess-work," I will quote the following standard author- 
ity on fevers: 

Potter's Definition of Fever. 

"Fever is a condition in which there are present the phe- 
nomena of rise of temperature, quickened circulation, marked 
tissue change, and disordered secretions. 

1 ' The primary cause of the fever phenomena is still a moot- 
ed question, and is either a disorder of the sympathetic nervous 
system giving rise to disturbances of the vaso-motor filaments, 
or a derangement of the nerve-centers located adjacent to 
the corpus striatum, which have been found, by experiment, 
to govern the processes of heat-production, distribution, and 
dissipation. 

"Rise of temperature is the pre-eminent feature of all 
fevers, and can only be positively determined by the use of the 
clinical thermometer. The term ' f everishness ' is used when 
the temperature ranges from 99 to ioo° Fahrenheit; slight 
fever if ioo°or 101 , moderate if 102 or 103 , high if 104 or 105 , 
and intense if it exceed the latter. The term 'hyperpyrexia' 
is used when the temperature shows a tendency to remain at 
106 Fahrenheit and above. 

1 ' Quickened circulation is the rule in fevers, the frequency 
usually maintaining a fair ratio with the increase of the tem- 
perature. A rise of one degree Fahrenheit is usually attended 
with an increase of eight to ten beats of the pulse per minute. 

"The following table gives a fair comparison between 
temperature and pulse : 



FEVERS. 235 

Table of Degrees. 
A temperature of 98 Fahrenh. corresponds to a pulse of 60. 
A temperature of 99 Fahrenh. corresponds to a pulse of 70. 
A temperature of 100 Fahrenh. corresponds to a pulse of 80. 
A temperature of 10 1° Fahrenh. corresponds to a pulse of 90. 
A temperature of 102 Fahrenh. corresponds to a pulse of 100. 
A temperature of 103 Fahrenh. corresponds to a pulse of no. 
A temperature of 104 Fahrenh. corresponds to a pulse of 120. 
A temperature of 105 Fahrenh. corresponds to a pulse of 130. 
A temperature of 106 Fahrenh. corresponds to a pulse of 140. 

"The tissue waste is marked in proportion to the severity 
and duration of the febrile phenomena, being slight (or nil) in 
febricula, and excessive in typhoid fever. 

"The disordered secretions are manifested by the defi- 
ciency in the salivary, gastric, intestinal, and nephritic secre- 
tions, the tongue being furred, the mouth clammy, and there 
occurring anorexia, thirst, constipation, and scanty, high- 
colored acid urine." 

What has the student found by reading the above defini- 
tion of this standard author and representative of present med- 
ical attainment but a labored effort to explain what that author 
does not even know? 

Fevers Only "Effects. 

Fevers are effects only. The cause may be far from mental 
conclusions. If we have a house with one bell and ten wires, 
each fastened to a door and running to the center, all having 
connections and so arranged that to pull any one wire will set 
the bell in motion, without an indicator you cannot tell which 
wire is disturbed, producing the effect or ringing of the bell at 
the center. An electrician would know at once the cause, but 
to discriminate and locate the wire disturbed is the study. 

Before a bell can be heard from any door, the general bat- 
tery must be charged. Thus you see but one source of supply. 



236 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

To better illustrate, we will take a house with eight rooms and 
all supplied by one battery. One apartment is a reception- 
room, one a parlor, one a sitting-room, one a bed-room, one a 
cloak-room, one a dining-room, one a kitchen, and one a base- 
ment room, all having wires and bells running to one bell 
in the clerk 's office, which has an indicator for each room. If 
the machinery is in good order, he can call or answer cor- 
rectly every ring and never make a mistake. But should he 
ring to the cook and her bell should Tteep on ringing and 
they could not stop it, they would summon an electrician. 
What would you think if he began at the parlor bell to adjust 
a trouble of the kitchen bell? Surely you would not have him 
treat the parlor bell first, because you know the trouble is with 
the kitchen bell. Now, to apply this illustration, we will say a 
system of bells and connecting wires run to all parts or rooms 
of the body, from the battery of power or the brain. These 
wires or nerves are connected with all active or vital parts of 
the body. Thus arranged, we see that blood is driven to any 
part of the system by the power that is sent over the nerves 
from the brain to the spinal cord, and from there to all nerves 
of each and all divisions of the body. Then blood that has 
done its work in constructing parts or all of the system enters 
veins to be returned to the heart for renewal. Each vein 
has nerves as servants of power to force blood back to the 
heart and constructed to suit the duties they have to perform 
in the process of life. If the blood travels to the heart too 
thick to suit the lungs, the great system of lymphatics pours in 
water to suit the demands, preparatory to having the blood 
enter the lungs to be purified and renewed. Nature has amply 
prepared all the machinery and power to prepare material and 
construct all parts, and when in normal condition the mind 
and wisdom of God is satisfied that the machine will go on and 
build and run according to the plans and specifications. If 



FEVERS. 237 

this be true, as Nature proves it to be at every point, what can 
man do farther than line things up and trust to Nature to ge': 
the results desired, "life and health"? Can we add or sugges 
any improvement? If not, what is left for us to do is to keep 
bells, batteries, and wires in their normal places and trust to 
normal laws as given by Nature to do the rest. 

Result op Stoppage of Vein or Artery. 
A few questions remain to be asked by the philosophical 
navigator when he sets sail to go to the cause of flux. Would 
he go to the blood-supply? Certainly, there must be supply 
previous to deposit. Reason would cause us to combine the 
fact that blood must be in perpetual motion from and to the 
heart during life, and that law is the fiat of all Nature, indis- 
pensable and absolute. Blood must not stop its motion nor 
be allowed to make abnormal deposits. The work of the heart 
is complete if it delivers blood into the arteries. Bach divi- 
sion must then do its part fully as the normal heart does in 
health, and a normally formed heart is just as much interested in 
the blood that is running constantly for repairs and additions 
as the whole system is in the arteries of supply. You must 
have perfection in the heart first, and from it to all arteries. 
All hindrances must be kept away from the arteries, great and 
small. Health permits of no stoppage of blood in either the 
vein or artery. If an artery cannot unload its contents, a strain 
follows, and, as an artery must have room to deposit its sup- 
plies, it proceeds to build other vessels adjacent to the points 
of obstruction. 

Fevers Are Fevers. 

Fevers of the fall and summer season are neither hotter 

nor colder than the fevers of winter and spring. I speak thus 

to impress on the student's mind that heat is heat at any season 

of the year and is common to all diseases. In some diseases 



238 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

heat is higher than in other diseases. We speak of bilious 
fever, yellow fever, lung fever, and a long list of fevers, each 
one bearing a special name as measured out by the little 
books on symptomatology. All fail to show any difference 
between the fevers of eruptions and the fevers of any other 
disease, notwithstanding that much use is made of the hand- 
thermometer to ascertain just how hot the afflicted person 
gets. It matters little with an osteopath how hot or how 
cold a patient gets, his object of observation being in another 
direction, a direction that leads him to seek the cause of this 
fermentation and boiling of the fluids in the body. Fluids 
delayed in the blood-vessels, lymphatics, and excretories fer- 
ment, and during the process of fermentation the temper- 
ature naturally varies many degrees by the increased action 
of electricity. It is reasonable to suppose that before fermen- 
tation sets up its action it must have something to act upon, 
and, as it acts only on stagnant blood, it must find this stag- 
nant deposit either in the veins, arteries, lymphatics, or cell- 
ular tissues of the organs, vessels, and other places for its 
temporary sojourn. We are ready to explore any organ in the 
thorax, abdomen, or pelvis, the lymphatics and glands of the 
fascia, superficial and deep, or any membrane of the body. 
In fevers we may expect to find congestion of the mesentery 
and of the peritoneum generally, also of the nerves, blood- 
vessels, and lymphatics of the fascia. We may expect and will 
find deposits and resulting chemical action that will show its 
energy by the degree of heat that is expressed by the touch of 
the hand or the register of a thermometer. All conspire to 
prove that heat is only an effect. 

After being satisfied that there are no two kinds of heat, 
then we will take up the search and go at it in a systematic 
hunt, by exploring for abnormal variations in size and place of 
any organ, muscle, skin, fascia, lymphatics, and blood-vessels 



FEVERS. 239 

of the pelvis, abdomen, chest, and neck, caused by local or 
general congestion 

Go to the Spine. 
A study of the nature of fevers leads us to the spine. We 
must see that all openings from the base of the skull to the 
lowest point of the sacrum are open and in good condition to 
allow free action of all nerves issuing from the spinal cord and 
giving force to membranes, organs, muscles, etc. If an organ 
has an area allotted to its use, we must reason that it can do no 
perfect work outside of that area. Each spine must be per- 
fect in place and in articulation at each joint or a closure will 
appear, oppressing and hindering the action of the lymph, 
nerves, and blood-vessels. Thus we have blood and other sub- 
stances stopped that should go on without delay to their proper 
destination and uses. By a careful study of the perfect spinal 
column and cord, and nerves and membranes holding organs 
and vessels in place, we will see that the system is perfect in 
bones, their shape, size, and place, with openings for passages 
of blood-vessels and nerves. The motion of the spine to all 
points is perfect and does not interfere with the blood- and 
nerve-supply. To know the spinal column from beginning to 
end is wisdom that we must have or fail. The student of anat- 
omy knows that the flesh of the head, face, neck, and the whole 
system is united to the bones, and that this union means duties 
to be performed by the softer parts that are held in place or 
position by the harder parts, for the process of functioning to 
proceed. He also knows that the limit or space allotted to 
many organs is small, and that very little variation from this 
allotted position causes impingement upon other organs by 
confused nerve-action, blood-supply, and removal of waste 
matter through the excretory provisions. And the fact being 
known that muscles are attached to bones, and that bones 
articulate and have openings in them or between them for the 



24O PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

passage of different substances, then a student need not be sur- 
prised, after the displacement of a bone occurs, to find thick- 
enings appear in the air-passages of the nose or any part of 
the lining membranes of the mouth, the tonsils, the tongue, 
the throat, or the muscles, nerves, or glands of the windpipe, 
right back of which he will find membranes, fascia, ligaments, 
or mesentery to suit and complete the perfect attachment of the 
tongue or any organ, or the lining membranes of the mouth, 
tongue, or any membrane that has a bony attachment in the 
upper part of the system. We must not omit the importance 
that Nature has attached to the use of this great division in its 
work in the economy of life. The student must remember 
that he, at this point, enters an open door that will give him an 
opportunity to behold a part of the laboratory of life. He 
must know that all attachments in place must be perpetual; 
also they must not be bruised, strained, or misplaced; other- 
wise we have a diseased tongue, tonsil, epiglottis, thyroid 
glands, submaxillary or other glands of the face, loss of hair, 
sight, speech, the power of swallowing or hearing, and are left 
in a condition for the encouragement of abnormal growths, 
owing to perverted nerve- and blood-supply, which means, 
with us, the artery to feed and the vein and excretories to con- 
duct away that which is of no more vital use to an organ and its 
territory. As the trachea, oesophagus, lungs, and heart all have 
membranous attachments to the spine, we must remember that 
the attachments must universally be undisturbed, absolutely. 
Strains, jars, jolts, partial or complete, and dislocations of spine 
or ribs may cause the heart and lungs by their own weight to 
pull down and cause a heavy straining upon the membranes 
that attach these organs to the spine, a fact undoubtedly pro- 
ducing great interference with the sympathetic nervous sys- 
tem and the spinal cord with its assisting nerve-fibers, govern- 
ing and forcing the arterial blood from the aorta into the spinal 
openings. 



FEVERS. 241 

Congestion, Etc. 
Another cause that we will notice, other than surgical 
injuries that pull down the mesentery, causing much variation 
from the normal, is that of extremes in heat and cold, causing 
stoppage of blood, lymph, water, and other fluids, which are 
detained long enough to set up congestion, irritation, fermenta- 
tion, inflammation, and sloughing into the thoracic, abdom- 
inal, and pelvic cavities, and which should have been conducted 
to the lungs or out of the body through the excretory system. 
It is my object at the present time to insist upon the atten- 
tion of the student to the very important fact that the mem- 
branes which hold the organs of the body in place lengthen by 
heat and contract by cold. This membrane we call the mes- 
entery, the peritoneum, the fascia, muscular attachment, or any 
other name we may select; but under all names these attach- 
ments will stretch, and stretch downwardly by the law of grav- 
itation, causing irritation and death by strangulation. They 
will do this work of death by strangulation as certainly as the 
hangman's rope. You must remember that no unhealthy 
swing will be tolerated by the Master-Builder. I have endeav- 
ored to give you a cause that produces disease of the pancreas, 
spleen, stomach, liver, kidneys, bowels, and uterus, and it is 
done by the pendulous pulling of the loaded bowels upon the 
elastic membranous attachments to the spine You often 
will see dropping of the ascending colon from the right iliac 
fossa, which is the normal position of the base of the caecum. 
You often have a lengthening of the mesentery that will allow 
this caecum to fall from three to seven inches, disguise the ileo- 
caecal valve, and conduct your patient to death by prohibiting 
the softer fluids from passing through the ileo-caecal valve to 
save the life of the patient, who is dying from hardened faecal 
matter in the colon, from the caecum to any point above the 
anus. The bad effects are almost innumerable that follow 



242 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

malpositions of any organ, from the mouth to the anus, by their 
membranous attachments giving way, often resulting in the 
removal or change in position of organ after organ. This 
removal and nevv position taken by an organ would easily 
indicate the cause of many abnormal manifestations, such as 
are known by the name of typhoid fever, dysentery, flux, 
malposition of the uterus, malformation of the uterus, inflam- 
mation of the kidneys, liver, bladder, and so on, to an unlim- 
ited number of injurious effects that can all be reasoned out 
and traced to mesenteric disturbances. 

Look por Lesions. 
I have spoken of the membranes that connect the tongue, 
trachea, oesophagus, lungs, and heart to the spine above the 
diaphragm; also of the whole list of membranes that hold the 
liver, spleen, and other organs of the abdomen in place. I have 
drawn the attention of the student to the blood-, nerve-, and 
lymph-supplies of the mesenteric systems of both the large and 
small bowels, with general remarks on the mesentery of all 
organs of the abdomen and their uses, in order that the student 
can have a direct method in seeking the causes that produce 
abnormal conditions of any organ of the chest, abdomen, and 
pelvis. Explore the spine for bony abnormalities at all points 
that any organ receives nerve-supply from the spinal nerves. 
Then pass to the abdomen for twists or folds of the mesentery 
or any change of position of any of the organs. You may find 
abnormalities in form and place of the bladder, uterus, bowels, 
kidneys, liver, spleen, and other organs below the diaphragm, 
that lead to disease and death by strangulation or suspension 
of the fluids of the meso-system, all the way from the tongue to 
the end of the sacrum. It is the connective tissue of the spine 
that directly connects the omentum and mesentery to the spine 
and other places of attachment to which we would like to point 



FEVERS. 243 

the attention of the student, because this connecting tissue is 
the bridge that conducts the nerve-forces to the great omen- 
tum and mesentery, generally, with their lymphatic vessels. 
To the connections with the stomach, bowels, spleen, and 
pancreas, we wish special attention given, and every point of 
organic connection, clear back to the tonsils and Eustachian 
tubes because we believe that inflammations of all membranes, 
organs, and glands of the thorax receive their irritating shock 
in the nerve-fibers as they pass from the sympathetic and spinal 
cord to the organs, blood, lymph, and nerves of the chest. Irri- 
tation by changes of temperature, shocks, jolts, and so on will 
set up contracture and confusion of the receipt and discharge 
of fluids or force designed to be passed through the membrane 
to and from any organ in the chest. This perpetual irritation 
causes congestion, inflammation, and decomposition of fluids, 
and can be accounted for by detention in the lymphatics of the 
chest. The remedy is self -suggesting. The demand for a per- 
fect spine and ribs, with all their connections and articulations, 
is imperative, because the intercostal nerve- and blood-supply 
must be normal, or disease will follow from stagnation of fluids. 

Summer and Winter Diseases. 
I think one of the best methods to study acute diseases Is 
by the seasons. We can not or do not have fall and winter dis- 
eases during the spring and summer months, nor spring and 
summer diseases during the fall and winter months. We will 
save time and grow wiser in -comprehension and good results 
by cutting hay in the summer and killing hogs in the winter. 
Still there is much similarity in diseases that rage during the 
winter and spring to those of summer and fall. In the warm 
weather we find more diseases of the bowels, liver, kidneys, and 
brain. We have much congestion of brain, lungs, bowels, liver, 
and spleen, following long exposure to sun heat. We have 



244 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

very little summer diseases before July and August, when we 
get the direct rays of the sun with its full magnetic powers. 
We roast all day, work until we are afire with sun heat, and 
then throw cold water into our stomachs, chilling nerve 
and stopping blood-action by contracting arteries and veins. 
With cold drinks much blood is chilled to death, and we then 
have congestion of the circulation of all the abdominal organs, 
chest, and brain. Then the fire of Nature begins to start up 
to burn up or cremate its dead corpuscles. We say "fever" 
in place of "fire." We should look on all heat as electricity 
in motion. We should at all times, both winter and summer, 
remember that we are attending funerals of dead blood and 
other fluids. We are undertakers, and not life-makers. The 
funeral procession may have enough dead corpuscles on its 
train to leave the camp of life below self-defense. 

Constriction and congestion govern and modify tempera- 
ture. Cold universally causes stoppage of fluids by stricture 
of nerves and muscles. A fever of any kind is preceded by 
constricture, long enough to produce congestion and tumefac- 
tion about the neck to a degree of irritation of the motor nerves, 
which augments nerve-action to the degree of combustion, 
always an accompaniment of electric action. In all fevers we 
find the nerves and muscles of the neck very rigid, the blood- 
circulation much disturbed. Previous to a chill we have 
almost complete suspension of the venous flow from the brain, 
a temporary paralysis of the vaso-motor. Following this cold 
stage, action sets up in the motor nerves of the arterial circu- 
lation and becomes very powerful, throwing the blood with a 
velocity that indicates great friction all through the body from 
center to surface. Thus we have cause to suspect electric 
action to a very high degree, to a degree that would produce 
combustion by friction. On this foundation ever remember 
that heat and cold receive their orders from the neck. 



FEVERS. 245 

Pedigree of Fevers. 
Typhoid fever, bilious fever, and chronic dysentery all 
have their name. Each one of these fevers from an M.D.'s 
standpoint has a pedigree that is sacredly kept in a little book 
in the clerk's office. The name of this book is "Symptom- 
atology." Bach one of these fevers must have all the marks 
noted in the pedigree-book or you are not safe to label it. One 
is a Hereford, one is a Jersey, and one is a Polled Angus. Bach 
one of these cows has a pedigree in which is described the size, 
weight, age, color, horns, eyes, udders, tails, legs, hoofs, spots, 
neck, and all marks but one, which is the chemical cause in the 
blood that makes the Polled Angus black, the Hereford red, 
and the Jersey yellow. The little book does not tell you that 
the Polled Angus, or typhoid fever of the winter, was caused 
by blood being held too long below the diaphragm so that it 
died; or that- the Jersey, or summer disease, came from the same 
cause, but was born in warm weather, the blood being killed in 
the veins of the abdomen. Osteopa.thy know T s this, and knows 
also that this truth is not in the old time -honored books of ped- 
igree. The osteopath should not spend any time after the 
patient has given him the history of the disease, except to hunt 
for the cause, find it, and adjust the deformities, then wait a 
few days and note effects. If good, keep on, with an eye to 
guarding your patient against strains and jars that would cause 
bones and ligaments to fall back to the condition that caused 
the disease in the first place. Remember that the same cause 
will produce the same effect, and you will have to do your work 
over again unless care is taken long enough to let muscles get 
strong and normal 

Most Dreaded. 
Typhoid fever is a disease much dreaded by all, because it 
kills both young and old with equal certainty. It is dreaded 



246 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

by the doctor just as much or more so than by the patient. 
The best and oldest doctors have long since hung out a written 
failure. The M.D. has used his best skill. He has failed to 
cure or have any luck to encourage him in the thought that 
he is following a system that is trustworthy. He, too, must 
change his tactics or spend his days knowing that he is defeated 
in all engagements with typhoid fever. 

Temperature. 
As temperature surely has much or all to do with phys- 
ical force, we think a little reasoning on the subject would be 
proper, at least as much as we can give it in the relations to 
animal life, motion of blood and muscles. The blood keeps in 
perpetual motion from and to the heart and through all organs 
and parts of the body. One says it is nerve-force or energy, 
and another says it is life-force that moves the blood, but how 
is this force generated, and when and where is it made to act 
as a blood-driving force? How is blood driven to the heart 
and returned to the place from whence it started? We know 
it leaves by the arteries and returns through the veins, but how 
do the arteries drive out and the veins drive or force the blood 
to return to the heart? What is the probable cause that gives 
this almost perpetual motion of the fluids of the body? We 
know by reason that the heart contracts at the center and forces 
the blood through the arteries to all divisions of the body. Also 
we know, just as well, that the veins contract at the greatest 
distance from the heart and force the blood to return to the 
heart through the veins by contraction of the veins, beginning 
at the capillaries and continuing the force by contracting the 
whole venous system from extremity to center. What causes 
the heart to forcibly contract and relax periodically? Why 
should the veins contract at all or dilate? Is it a shock on the 
nerves caused by the change of temperature of the atmosphere 
that causes this periodic tightening and relaxing of the blood- 



FEVERS. 247 

vessels? By periodically contracting and relaxing I mean the 
action of the heart and veins during the flow of blood. The 
heart contracts for a time, then relaxes for a time, periodically. 
This is the phenomenon that we will try to account for by 
atmospheric shocks on the nerves of the heart to drive the 
blood out, then irritation of the capillary nerves of veins, 
causing them to contract and return the blood to the heart. 

Let us reason that with man's temperature above 90 
degrees, an electric shock takes place with the action of the air 
taken into the lungs, and from action of lungs and chemical 
union of explosive substances while in the lungs. Thus an 
irritation of the nerves of the heart causes constriction of the 
muscles of the heart by atmospheric irritation of, first, the 
nerves of the lungs, then of the heart, and all the arterial system 
of nerves. 

Temperature regulates the motion of the universe and all 
bodies therein. Life in motion is an effect of temperature just, 
above 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Death is inaction, a lack of heat 
or motion. We cease to move, or are dead, as we say. When 
blood gets to 96 degrees, an explosive impulse forces it from 
the heart to the greatest distance, to awake a venous explosion 
among the nerves and cause the veins to contract and push 
blood back to the liver, lungs, and heart again. Thus by tem- 
perature we have explosion at the heart to drive out the blood, 
and at the capillary ends of veins and arteries we get another 
explosion that forces nerves to contract and drive the blood 
from the small veins to the large, keeping up perpetual motion 
by vital heat or temperature. 



CHAPTER XI. 



Biogen. 



Development and Progress. 

Wonders are daily callers, and seem to have been greatly 
on the increase during the last century. As we read history 
we learn that no one hundred years of the past has produced 
wonders in such number and variety. Stupid systems of gov- 
ernment have given place to better and wiser systems. Ocean 
trips have had months by sail reduced to days by stea m. Jour- 
neys overland that would require six months by horse or ox are 
now accomplished in six days by rail. Our iaw, medical, and 
other schools have taken great strides in advance, the facilities 
for giving the pupil an education are so far superior, and the 
knowledge sought can be obtained in less time. Our schools 
are not intended for time-consumers. Our aim is to obtain 
useful knowledge in the quickest and most thorough way that 
it can be obtained. If there is any method by which arith- 
metic can be taught so that we can master it in thirty days 
instead of thirty months, let us have it. We want knowledge, 
and we are willing to pay for it. We want all we pay for, and 
we want our heads kept out of the sausage-mill of time- wasting. 
A great question stands before us: What are the possibilities 
of still further improving our methods of gaining knowledge, 
saving time, and getting greater and better results ? I am free 
to say the question is too sweeping for me to give it an answer, 
as each day brings a new problem for the man or woman who 
reasons on cause and gives demonstrations by effects. 



BIOGEN. 249 

No one knows who the philosopher was that first asked the 
question, What is life? But all intelligent persons are inter- 
ested in the solution of this problem, at least to know some 
tangible reason why it is called ' ' life ' ' ; whether life is personal, 
or so arranged that it might be called an individualized principle 
of Nature. 

The Origin of Action. 

If life in man has been formed to suit the size and duties 
of the being, if life has a living and separate personage, then we 
should be governed by such reasons as would give it the great- 
est chance to go on with its labors in the bodies of man and 
beast. We know by experience that a spark of fire will start 
the principles of powder into motion, which, were it not stim- 
ulated by the positive principle of Father Nature, which finds 
this germ lying quietly in the womb of space, would be silently 
inactive for all ages, without being able to move or help itself, 
save for the motor principle of life given by the Father of all 
motion. 

Right here we should ask the question, Is action produced 
by electricity put in motion, or is it the active principle that 
comes as spiritual man? If the latter, it is useless to try or 
hope to know what life is in its minutiae. But we do know that 
life can only display its natural forces by the visible action of 
the forms it produces. If we inspect man as a machine, we 
find a complete building, a machine that courts inspection and 
criticism. It demands a full exploration of all its parts, with 
their uses. Then the mind is asked to find the connection 
between the physical and the spirituual. By Nature you can 
reason that the powers of life are arranged to suit its system of 
motion. If life is an individualized personage, as we might 
express that mysterious something, it must have definite 
arrangements by which it can be united and act with matter. 



250 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

Then we should acquaint ourselves with the arrangements of 
those natural connections, the one or many, in all parts of the 
completed being. As motion is the first and only evidence of 
life, by this thought we are conducted to the machinery through 
which life works to accomplish the results as witnessed in 
" motion." 

If the brain be that division in which force is generated or 
stored, you must at all hazards acquaint yourself with the 
structure of this machine ; trace the connections from the brain 
to the heart, from heart to lungs, and other organs that can be 
acted upon by the brain, whose duty may be to construct 
the fleshy and bony parts of the body. Trace these connec- 
tions from the brain to the chemical laboratories, and note the 
results as they unite and prepare blood and other fluids that 
are used in the economy of this vital, self-constructing and 
self -moving wonder known as man, wherein life and matter 
unite and express their friendly relation one with the other. 
While this relation exists we have the living man only, express- 
ing and proving the relation that can exist between life and mat- 
ter, from the lowest living atom to the greatest worlds. They 
can only express form and action by this law. Harmony only 
dwells where obstructions do not exist. 

The osteopath finds here the field in which he can dwell 
forever. His duties as a philosopher admonish him that life 
and matter can be united, and that that union cannot Con- 
tinue with any hindrance to free and absolute motion. There- 
fore his duty is to keep away from the track all that will hinder 
the complete passage of the forces of the nervous system, that 
by that power the blood may be delivered and adjusted to keep 
the system in a normal condition. Here is your duty. Do it 
well, if you wish to succeed. 






BIOGEN. 251 

Forces Combined. 
We see the form of each world, and call the united action 
biogenic life. All material bodies have life terrestrial and all 
space has life, ethereal or spiritual life. The two, when united, 
form man. Life terrestrial has motion and power; the celes- 
tial bodies have knowledge or wisdom. Biogen is the lives of 
the two in united action, that give motion and growth to all 
things. Thus we have life terrestrial, or the power to move, 
and the wisdom from the celestial to govern all motions of 
worlds and beings, by union of the life of space and the life of 
matter. The force and wisdom of both by that union is driven 
into motion by temperature from the ethereal life, to form and 
control the universe and all worlds and beings of each planet. 
If a seed is planted in the earth and it obeys both the terrestrial 
and the celestial forces, then the result is a tree. A man, bio- 
genic force, means both lives in united action to construct all 
bodies in form, with wisdom to govern their actions. Thus 
endowed, two beings or worlds, when in contact, give wisdom 
and force to work out greater problems than either could 
accomplish alone. As both have been formed by terrestrial 
forces aided by celestial wisdom, then greater results can be 
hoped for, and in friendly unison in action such results will 
appear as the effects of that harmonious union of two great 
causes. Thus biogen or material life of the two obeys the wis- 
dom of the celestial mind or life. The result is faultless per- 
fection, because the earth-life shows in material forms the wis- 
dom of the God of the celestial. Thus we say biogen or dual 
life, that life means eternal reciprocity that permeates all nature. 
The celestial worlds of space or ether-life give forms wisely con- 
structed in exchange for the use of the material substances. 
Reciprocity through the governments of the celestial and ter- 
restrial worlds is ever the same, and human life, in form and 
motion, is the result of conception by the terrestrial mother 



252 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

from the celestial father. Thus we have a union of mind, mat- 
ter, and life, or man. 

To bring this subject within the comprehension of the stu- 
dent, that he may know why the arterial or celestial force should 
be brought to act with full force upon the terrestrial or the sub- 
stances of the body, he has only to think for a moment that 
man contains in his physical organization all chemical sub- 
stances that belong to the earth, and that these substances are 
put into growing motion, first by the living force or nourish- 
ment obtained from the soil. So far no growth could appear 
without the assistance of the celestial, heavenly, or atmos- 
pheric forces, such as dews, rains, light, darkness, and temper- 
ature to suit the vital action of vegetation. He has only to 
think a moment to see that the laws governing the growth of 
vegetation govern animal bodies in a similar way. The earth 
substance has its biogen peculiar to giving strength to vegeta- 
tion, and the body of man, which is composed of material sub- 
stances taken from the earth, has its equivalent to the biogen 
necessary to vegetable growth. This biogen is peculiar in its 
nature to the growth of animal bodies. The kinds of substan- 
ces consumed in vegetable growths are very different from those 
used in the growths of animal bodies or forms. The circula- 
tion of the fluid substances is very similar, both being obliged 
to pass through arterial channels suited to the requirements 
of each, so we see that the law of assimilation, appropriation, 
and growth is very much alike. It is just as important for the 
healthy growth of the tree that the plentiful supply of sap and 
substances necessary to the growth of the tree should be undis- 
turbed, as it is necessary that the blood or sap of human life 
meet with no hindrances if successful growth of a bone or mus- 
cle is to be expected. Since the purest of blood is required to do 
physical work in the human body through the whole system 
in the best of shape, we will offer as a substitute some impure 



BIOGEN. 253 

or inferior quality of blood to be appropriated in the economy 
of life, and ask what can be expected but bad results in all 
organs supplied or fed by such low nutritious diet. As a little 
leaven leaveneth the whole loaf, would not a little diseased 
blood disease the whole viscera? By way of illustration, let 
us wound the liver, omentum, pancreas, spleen, kidneys, or 
bowels, or cause blood to die and decompose in one of the 
organs. Have we not made a nucleus for an increase in the 
quantity and quality of the poisonous blood that will extend 
with its poisons through the whole sysetm? If so, we have no 
other question to ask. We know the cause and should well 
understand and relieve the sufferer by opening up drainage, 
forwarding the best of blood for the repair of damages done by 
stagnant impurities. To illustrate this thought, we will begin 
the preparation of diseased blood by deranging the colon from 
the rectum through the descending, sigmoid, transverse, and 
ascending colon or the caecum, which contains the gate of 
exit through which the fluids must pass to keep the faecal mat- 
ter in a soft, digestible, and movable condition. We will bruise, 
poison, ligate, kink, or twist the colon from the caecum to the 
descending curve on the left side. If we stop the blood, we 
have stagnation, congestion, fermentation, death of fluids, 
and poisonous blood to be absorbed by the lymphatics and 
other members of the secretory family, and to be conveyed to 
the liver through the venous system. This diseased blood 
becomes the nourishment for the liver, which is expected to 
be healthy and act as a purifying laboratory, preparing sub- 
stances through purification for blood — the blood of life, and 
not the blood of death, with poisonous impurities. A physiol- 
ogist with even a moderate degree of anatomical knowledge 
knows just what arteries supply the liver and what veins keep 
the organ pure. He also knows just as well that the drainage 
of the whole abdomen passes directly to the liver, through 



254 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

which blood passes on its journey to the heart and lungs for 
further purification. He knows that diseased blood returned 
from the rectum or colon becomes poor food for a healthy liver. 
He knows that diseased blood from the bladder, the uterus, or 
any membrane or gland of the pelvis is thrown into the chan- 
nels and conducted to the liver without regard to its purity. 
The venous system and the liver itself must report and deposit 
fluids, good or bad, in the liver. The man of our school knows, 
if he has the brains to be a successful osteopath, that this dis- 
eased blood becomes a fire to the hepatic laboratory, and that 
fire of disease circumnavigates the whole system, bone, brain, 
nerve, and muscle. Thus, you see, if the liver is diseased, the 
body is diseased, and the cause of this deadly compound has 
had its origin in the rectum, low down, by displaced members 
of the abdominal viscera. We see the process of generating 
poisons by cutting off or disturbing the venous flow of blood 
in the rectum long enough to allow it to lose its vitality and 
decompose and do the deadly work of forming poisonous gases 
and deposits. 

Matter in the Atom. 

When matter is reduced to its greatest degree of atomic 
fineness, then it can submit to any bodily form, because all sub- 
tances contain in kind that of all other kinds by nature, and 
can easily take the form of man, beast, bird, or reptile, because 
this fineness is equal to that of spiritual food or the motor pow- 
ers of life. An atom is the limit of inaction, the point at which 
life rests in matter, because of its crudity. When matter passes 
beyond the degree of being atomized farther, then it is life, 
and it acts and forms itself to suit the body of any being or the 
world. When matter ceases to be divisible, it then becomes 
a fluid of life and easily unites with other atoms, and is a mass 
or body of living matter and recrystallizes into the form given 



BIOGEN. 255 

by the parent causes. Thus man's body is a form given by 
celestial life to the terrestrial life that is reduced back from the 
living matter to a man, world, or being, with form of a being 
given by the celestial forces acting on living matter whilst in 
the living state of matter, so fine that the atoms blend and 
become a unit, or melt and become one being or body of living 
matter, with quality equal to all qualities of life, wisdom, and 
material substances, never to return to their original state, 
either as matter or life. In man's body have been prepared 
and united the two kinds of life, the celestial and terrestrial, 
and the result is man and beast. "All matter," says one, "is 
living substance." We know life only by the motion of mate- 
rial bodies. That self -moving principle which we see in all ani- 
mal bodies we call life, because we see them move independent 
of other bodies or forces. That life acts and moves in that 
being of its own force. Life is individualized and has its limit 
of action, which extends no further than the man or beast gov- 
erned by that individual power known as the life of man or 
beast. Then we behold a living body, and we say, "That body 
is all alive; every atom moves." How long have the atoms 
moved as man, all united in form? If but a few years in that 
form of associated atoms, and the atoms were living when they 
first met, how long have they been alive, and when and how 
did they become living atoms, or is life eternally the same in 
the atoms? 

The; Material and Immaterial. 
It matters very little to man where mind, motion, and 
matter came from, the one place or the other. They are all in 
his make-up, and he is interested in keeping them all healthy. 
If he is a doctor, he is interested in quick cures, because his liv- 
ing depends on his success. The doctor does not have to fur- 
nish his patients mind, matter, or motion. His work is to 
keep the body adjusted so it can supply itself with brain and 



256 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

muscle ; then mind and motion will appear and keep the labo- 
ratory full of the choicest chemicals and free from disease. 
Healthy organs and food are what keeps a man healthy. The 
doctor can aid in keeping the organs in place. This he can 
do if he knows the forms and functionings of the different parts 
of the body. If not, he is of but little use or benefit to the sick. 

The Visible and Invisible. 
All visible matter is life retired from labor to rest. All 
motion is matter in action. An explosive is matter at rest, and 
an explosion is matter in motion; so of motion in man. Life 
begins to unfold by explosions of lower orders of material life 
in matter. Thus all action marks the amount and quality of 
explosives used by the body that moves. What we call life is 
matter at labor ; death is matter minus explosive ability and at 
rest. The velocity of the union of the two forces doubles the 
explosive powers of either. Animal life appears on the stage 
of action. We see "motionless matter, earth, stone, and on to 
all visible bodies." And we see moving matter; we say "liv- 
ing matter." When we see dead bodies that do not move, we 
say "dead matter." But is it dead, or is it in a state of inac- 
tion or rest only, and waiting its time to fall in line as living 
active matter that is rested and ready to take up the line of 
march and give its energies to the orders of Nature ? We speak 
of life, but know of it only as we see bodies move by life back 
of the visible matter. Does Nature have a finer matter that 
is invisible and that moves all that is visible to us? Life surely 
is a very finely prepared substance, which is the all-moving 
force of Nature, or that force that moves all nature from 
worlds to atoms. It seems to be a substance that contains all 
the principles of construction and motion, with the power to 
endow that which it constructs with the attributes necessary 
to the object it has formulated from matter and sent forth as a 



biogen. 257 

living being. We think it is not unreasonable to conclude that 
life is matter in motion, with ability to carry its kind and 
impart the same to other bodies. To illustrate, we would say 
that smallpox is the effect of living matter that permeates all 
systems in which it may dwell, and consumes to partial or com- 
plete destruction. The same law is true with other contagious 
substances. They are materials reduced to the degree of liv- 
ing fineness. They proceed to take possession of the human 
body and inflict their wounds and cause disease and death. 
These are effects — not of dead matter, but of living matter, 
that seeks to live and destroys organic bodies by subsisting on 
the substances that should sustain the life of man. Thus one 
dies of starvation and a new creature lives, takes his flight in 
search of nourishment, and keeps up a perpetual journeying as 
one of the finest principles and efforts of Nature, which is mat- 
ter refined to the condition known as life. 

Thus far we see nothing in matter but life at rest. Even 
the human body that we see every day is matter called to a 
halt and at rest. This is life of a lower order submitting to the 
edicts of the higher life, which life keeps up motion by the com- 
bustion of the terrestrial substances within the body. This 
combustion is conducted, prepared, and brought into action by 
the refining laboratory that issues nothing but the active sub- 
stance known as life. That life substance, when conducted to 
a higher condition of unfoldment, is ready to take its place and 
send forth the wondrous action of the principle known as mind, 
when prepared by Nature to that degree of incomprehensible 
refinement known as mind, whose existence feasts and flour- 
ishes upon the waters of the ocean of universal intelligence, 
which speaks and proves the intelligence of God as the wisest 
of all chemists, who has united the necessary substances at His 
command to produce a union of matter endowed with action 
and the power of continuing the refining process until mind, 



258 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

the incomprehensible, appears with man as the crowning effort 
of the wisdom of an all-wise chemist, be he known as God, 
Nature, the Unknowable, or the ever -living Genius of the 
universe. 

We have given a few thoughts on this line of life, hoping 
the osteopath will take up the subject and travel a few miles 
farther toward the fountain of this great source of knowledge 
and apply the results to the relief and comfort of the afflicted 
who come for counsel and advice. 

Man Is Eternal. 
Human life is eternal. We have no proof otherwise. Life 
enters the forest of flesh as man. It carries constructing 
wisdom and ability. It begins with the atoms of flesh, adds 
by ones to countless millions, and carefully adjusts each to suit 
the form of the plans and specifications to make a physical hab- 
itation to suit the union of mind and matter. Thus we see the 
form, material man. It, man, begins work as a wise and great 
builder. It plans as it goes. All requirements are known and 
are well finished with perfect skill throughout. All parts fit to 
suit all other parts, he qualifying and preparing each atom of 
matter to the greatest gauge of purity of each kind, with forms 
to suit each atom, previous to being placed in its required posi- 
tion to harmonize with all other atoms entering into the form 
of bone or muscle. All work is so nicely done that we are forced 
as critics in the fine arts to conclude, from the work and skill 
shown in man's physical being, that man began as a skillful 
life, led on and on by perfect wisdom, each stroke in unison 
from start to finish. We must conclude that he is a builder 
guided by wisdom to the fullest and most satisfactory proof 
that life is the essence of wisdom in action in all nature, and 
man is life and mind without beginning of days or end of time. 
Man could not be man and not be a wise builder when he dwells 



BIOGEN. 259 

in worlds of matter whose powers to select and build have no 
limit short of perfection. He came to the forest of matter a 
master builder, and used such material as perfect wisdom only 
could select. In him we find no assistance given, nor was any 
necessary. He alone builded his own house, with all there- 
unto belonging. Where he got his power and wisdom is the 
question whose correct answer we do not know. His work is 
the silent witness of his abilities to do perfect work. When he 
picked up the first atom of matter and placed it, he added oth- 
ers to countless millions as his work progressed to the finished 
man. He did not come as a living germ, but as man, who was 
able to prove that he was master of matter and was perfection 
as a building genius, and only asked the skeptic to contradict 
his word or prove that it was not true by bringing forward the 
builder who made man, if he, man himself, did not handle the 
first, last, and all the other atoms in his form. He borrowed 
timber from the maternal forest and bore all the burdens of the 
required labor in building the house in which he lives. If he 
partakes of the nature of the universe, then, by that quality, 
he has constructiveness to perfection as a natural quality of his 
animal perfection. Thus, by nature, he not only proves to be 
perfection as a builder, but endowed also with power to reason, 
to care for and conduct his house of life and locomotion through 
its journey of physical union. In him nothing is imperfect 
excepting his reason. There seems to be greater wisdom shown 
in his construction than in his reasoning powers. We find him 
a skilled workman, and not "an atom of life, a living germ of 
protoplasm." Man. Who made him? One says, "God made 
him." Another thinks that if God had anything to do with 
man-making, that He, God, or the universal law under which 
man comes, put into his life-compound the essence of perfect 
constructive ability, which quality pervades the whole universe 
in the construction of worlds and beings of animal forms. 
Thus, to construct wisely is natural to all things. 



260 philosophy and principles op osteopathy. 

The Advent of Man. 

No record shows the exact time when man's foot first 
appeared on the earth. A knowledge of his advent might be 
profitable. The unwritten history of the human races, if we 
had it, might to us be a book of great knowledge. It is not sup- 
posed that the mind of man has become observingly active only 
in the last few centuries. Absolute evidence of purer and 
deeper reason than we have been able to present stands 
recorded on the faces of many valuable "lost arts" which we 
have never been able to equal. Is it not reasonable to suppose 
that the powers of mind have also degenerated from some 
cause ? 

The stock-raiser carefully chooses the best and most 
healthy of the males and females of his flocks and herds for 
breeding purposes, that their offspring may be healthy and well 
developed for the purposes for which he raises them. As a 
result, he raises from year to year stock with marked improve- 
ment in form, strength, and usefulness. Should he be foolish 
enough to kill off the healthy and well-developed males as they 
appeared in his stock, for one or two generations, would anyone 
with average intelligence suppose that the standards would or 
could be kept up? If for breeding purposes he would save 
calves, colts, lambs, pigs, goats, or any other young males that 
had had legs frozen off, one or both eyes plucked out, necks 
and ears torn by panthers, what would you think of the man's 
sanity? 

The Survival op the Weakest. 
On this line we would ask, What has been the procedure in 
human life? Has it not been to select the strong and healthy 
males and drive them out to the field of battle to destroy a 
million or more of other strong men? Our war of the sixties 
illustrates this. Since that war closed, the fathers of our children 
have been mainly crippled, worn-out, and degenerated physical 



BIOGKN. 261 

wrecks, and the "refused," who, for lack of physical ability, were 
barred from entering the service of the United States. Many of 
these physical and mental wrecks have been the fathers of 
children born during the last thirty-five years. Every healthy 
young lady who married and became a mother after the early 
sixties had to select a husband from a war or hereditary wreck. 
From that degenerated stock of human beings our asylums are 
rilled and the beams of the gallows pulled down by the weight 
of the bodies of those mental dwarfs. Run this train of reason 
back for a few hundreds or thousands of years. This degener- 
ating force has been bearing upon the offspring, and is it a 
wonder that we have physical and mental wrecks all over the 
country? 

Now if we have been mentally degenerating, killing our 
best men for a few thousand years' time, and still have a few left 
who are fairly good reasoners, what were the mental powers ages 
ago as compared with now? They could think from native 
ability; we only through acquired ability by our methods of 
education. Should an original thinker occasionally appear 
from among the crippled and maimed, he will have much that 
is unpleasant to contend with, unless he is generous enough 
to credit the cause to an effect produced by the lack of mental 
and physical forces in the sires just described. A man who is 
able to reason cannot afford to wear out his physical and mental 
forces by spending time in tiresome discussions with such blank 
masses, who are fortunate if they have intelligence enough to 
make a living under the methods that require the least mental 
action. It would not be unwise for him to allow a feeling of 
combativeness to arise and to spend his forces on such persons. 
Prenatal causes have dropped them where they are, and a 
philosopher is sorrowful instead of combative. All that is left 
for him to do is to trim his lamps and let the lights defend 
themselves. 



262 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

The ancients did much thinking. Great minds existed then, 
as is evidenced by the architecture displayed in the building of 
temples and pyramids. In philosophy, chemistry, and math- 
ematics we have living facts of their intelligence. In some 
ways we are equal and even surpass them, but in the establish- 
ment of religious and political governments, national and tribal 
creeds, powerful minds and bodies of thousands and millions 
have been slain and their wise counsels lost by death. Reason 
says that under the circumstances we must make and do the 
best we can for our day and generation. 

Methods op Healing. 

Some evidence crops out now and then that ancient meth- 
ods of healing were natural and wisely applied, and crowned 
with good results. As far as history speaks of the ancient heal- 
ing arts, they were logical, philosophical, good in results, and 
harmless. It is true we have great systems of chemistry that 
are useful in the mechanical arts, but they are very limited in 
their uses in the healing arts. In fact, a great percentage of 
the gray-haired philosophers of the medical schools unhesi- 
tatingly assert that the world would be better off without 
them. These conclusions are sent forth by competent and 
honest investigators, who have tested all known combinations 
of chemicals and drugs and carefully observed the results 
attained in the science of drugs from a quarter to a half a cen- 
tury. Let us call it ' ' a trade, ' ' as the use of drugs is not a science. 
The drug practitioner in a majority of cases, when he adminis- 
ters drugs, gives one dose for health and nine for the dollar. 

As it becomes necessary to throw off oppressive govern- 
ments, it becomes just as necessary to throw off other useless 
practices and customs. Drugs have had their day. Their fate 
is sealed just as surely as the millions of their human victims. 

Allopathy, a school of medicine known and fostered for 
these many years, attempted to find the real cause and cure of 



BIOGEN. 263 

diseases, but gave up the search and went into camp and con- 
structed temples to the god who purged, puked, perspired, opi- 
ated, and drank whisky and other stimulants. Allopathy has 
destroyed its thousands, ruined nations, established whisky 
saloons, opium dens, insane asylums, naked mothers, and hun- 
gry babies, and still cries aloud, and says: "Come unto me, 
and I will give you rest. I have opium, morphine, and whisky 
by the barrel. I am the god of all healing knowledge, and want 
to be so recognized by people and statute. I do not wish to be 
annoyed by eclecticism, homoeopathy, Christian science, mas- 
sage, Swedish movements, nor osteopathy. I do not like oste- 
opathy any better than I do a tiger. It scratches me and tears 
away all my disciples. I cannot destroy it. It uses neither 
opium nor whisky, and it is impossible to catch it asleep. It 
has scratched our power out of seventeen States, and there is 
no telling where it will scratch next. We must prepare for 
more war. I have heard from my scouts that on osteopathy's 
flag the inscription reads thus: 'No quarter for allopathy in 
particular, and none at all for any schools of medicine farther 
than surgery, and war to the hilt on three-fourths of that as 
practiced in the present day. The use of the knife in every- 
thing and for everything must be stopped ; not by statute law, 
but through a higher education of the masses, which will give 
them more confidence in Nature's ability to heal/" 

Primitive Man. 
It is reasonable to suppose that the Mind that constructed 
man was fully competent to undertake and complete the being 
to suit the purposes for which he was designed. After giving 
him physical perfection in every limb, organ, or part of his 
body, it is reasonable to suppose that at that time He gave him 
all the mental powers necessary for all purposes during the life 
of his race. With perfection in the physical, it is supposable 



264 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

he approached very near to intellectual perfection. Primi- 
tive man was a mathematician, not by collegiate process, but 
by native ability. He did not have to take a course in a uni- 
versity to study chemistry, because of the fact that he was a 
chemist when he was born. Possibly he could speak or under- 
stand all languages spoken by the human tongue from the pow- 
ers of his mind, which occupied a pure and healthy physique. 
In a word, he was well made and fully endowed with all the 
physical and mental forces necessary for the whole journey of 
his life. Now a question arises, When did he begin to degen- 
erate pKysically and mentally? Let us reason a little along 
this line. History is young and has had imperfectly recorded 
only such events as have transpired during a few centuries, and 
with records imperfectly preserved. 

We see evidences all along of prehistoric man's life, though 
the being and his bones have been mostly obliterated. We 
see close to his bony remains the stone axe and the flint dart. 
We find acres of ground in many places close to mounds and 
caves with countless millions of slivers that have been scaled 
from flints and formed to suit war's purposes. Bones found in 
caves and in buried heaps indicate that many thousands fell in 
mortal combat here and there. Possibly they were old in the 
skilled arts of war at that day. Great and powerful men, who 
should have been parents of the coming generations, were slain 
and destroyed, and the conquered became the captives and 
slaves of the conquerors, with all opportunities for mental 
development suppressed. Other nations and tribes entered the 
bloody fields of battle, and have nothing to report excepting the 
death of their best physically formed men, leaving the propa- 
gation of the race or races to those who were left behind as 
physically unfit for battle, owing to lack of strength of either 
body or mind. 

This process of destroying the mentally and physically 
great has been kept up to the limits of our history's record. 



BIOGEN. 26 5 

We must go to school about one-half of our time, in order to 
cultivate and stimulate our mental energies sufficiently well to 
follow the ordinary business pursuits of life. 

Mental Dwarfs. 
Without worrying the patience of the reader, we will ask 
him if it is not reasonable to believe that during all the past 
thousands of years that men have fought over their gods and 
governments, there has resulted a mental dwarf age? Our pro- 
fessional men are only imitators of one another. They spend 
many years in school because of a lack of native ability. This 
is our condition, and we must make the best we can of it. 
Most of our so-called learned men of to-day stand upon heaps 
of mental rubbish. You seldom see in an editor's columns any 
evidence of originality and mental greatness. He clips, quotes, 
and sells his " wisdom.' ' He takes up some hobby, religious or 
scientific. He lauds his own religious views. His scientific 
ideas he wishes embalmed for the use of future generations. 
His law is the law. His medicine is God's pills, notwithstand- 
ing he is the laughing-stock of all who know him. I want to be 
good to these fellows. I expect to be good to them, as they are 
suffering from the effects of prenatal causes thrown upon them 
by their ancestors for thousands of years. By those causes 
they possibly have been wounded worse than I have, and I do 
not expect to spend any time in combats with mental dwarfs, 
be they political, religious, or scientific bigots. If I can suc- 
cessfully run my boat over the riffles of time, I shall credit it to 
good luck, not native ability; for I, too, feel what they should — 
the deep plowings of mental dwarfage, the result of the slaugh- 
ter of all the great and good men for ages before us. 

The Appearance of (Edema 
CEdema is one word that appears at the first showing of 
life and death in animal forms. Previous to death there is 



266 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

a general swelling of the system, a watery swelling of fascia 
and lymphatics, even to those of nerve-fibers. If a disease 
should destroy life by withholding all fluids, we can trace such 
cause to a time when there was a watery swelling of the centers 
of the nerves of nutrition to such an extent as to cut off nerve- 
supply until sensation ceased to renovate and keep off accumu- 
lating fluids as long as fermentation did the work of heating till 
all fluids had dried up, and the channels of supply had closed 
by adhesive inflammation, and death followed by the law of 
general atrophy. 

To" make the assertion that all diseases have their begin- 
ning in cedema may be wide in its range, but we often find one 
principle ruling over much territory. Mind is the supreme 
ruler of all beings, from the mites of life to the monsters of the 
land and sea. There we see a ruling principle without limit. 
The same of numbers. By heat all metals melt. Acids must 
have oxygen to make them solvents of metals. We only speak 
imperfectly of a few common laws to prepare the student to 
think along the line of probabilities as I hold them out for con- 
sideration. Suppose we begin at the atoms of fluids, such as 
enter the construction of animal or vegetable forms, and have 
them held up until decomposition begins. In a delay like that, 
does not Nature call a halt and refuse to obey the laws of con- 
struction and let all other supplies pile up even unto death ? Is 
not all this the result of oedema ? CBdema surely begins with the 
first tardy atom of matter. Pneumonia begins by cedematous 
accumulations of dead atoms, even to the death of the whole 
body, all having found a start in atoms only. 

We will now propound a few questions which the osteo- 
path should keep in mind: 

Are animal forms complete as working machines? 

Has Nature furnished man with powers to make his bones 
and give them the necessary form? 



biogEn. 267 

Does a section in Nature's law provide fastenings to hold 
these to one another? 

How will this body move, and where and how is the force 
applied? 

Where and how is this force obtained? 

How is it generated and supplied to these parts of motion ? 

Whatjtnakes these muscles, ligaments, nerves, veins, and 
arteries? 

Are they self -forming, or has Nature prepared machinery 
to make them? 

Does animal life contain knowledge and force for the 
construction of all the parts of man? 

Can it run the machine after it has finished it? 

By what power does it move? 

Is there a blood-vessel running to every part of this body 
to supply all these demands? 

If it has a battery of force, where is it? 

What does it use for force? 

Is it electricity? If so, how does it collect and use this 
substance? 

How does it convey its powers? 

How does man keep warm without a fire ? 

How does he build and lose flesh all the time? 

Where and how is the supply made and delivered to proper 
places? 

How is it applied and what holds it to its place when 
adjusted? 

What makes it build the house of life? 

Do demand and supply govern the work? If not, what 
does? 

Are the laws of animal life sufficient to do all this work 
of building and repairing wastes and keeping it in running 
condition? 



268 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

If they are, what can man do or suggest to help them? 

Is this machine capable of being run fast or slow if need be? 

Does man have in him some kind of chemical laboratory 
that can turn out such products as he needs to fill all his phys- 
ical demands? 

If by heat, exercise, or any other cause he gets warm, 
can that chemistry cool him to normal? 

If too cold, can it warm him? Can it adjust him to heat 
and cold? 

If so, how is it done? Is the law of life and longevity fully 
vindicated in man's make-up? 



CHAPTER XII. 



Smallpox. 

The History of Smallpox. 

The subject of smallpox is a serious one for the minds, 
bodies, and pens of the doctors of this century, as it has been 
for those of many centuries of the past, if records are true, as 
we believe they are. We have learned nothing of the origin, 
nothing of the action of the deadly poison which it contains, 
and when we sum up all that has been written for thousands of 
years, we only learn that the doctor does not know what it is 
nor what it does, more than that it has the power to kill the 
human race by the millions. Judging from their writings, our 
wisest doctors know nothing more than does the savage, so in 
the twentieth century we need not look back to them for knowl- 
edge. The field is just as cloudy to-day for the doctor as at 
any period of the remotest days of man's history, when he 
thought God had sent smallpox as one of His choicest plagues 
to punish the nations for some sin of disobedience to His holy 
ordinance. Man has tried many ways to stop its deadly work. 
He has prayed, sacrificed, and dosed, but all to no effect up to 
the hour of the coming in of the twentieth century. I think 
the doctors of the medical schools have done the best they could 
to combat and stop its eternal fire, where the "worm" hath not 
died by the hands of the most skilled authors or doctors of med- 
icine. The medical doctors, with all they know of cause or 
cure, are just as afraid of smallpox as the commons. I claim 
it is the privilege and duty of the American School of Osteop- 



270 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

a thy to take a hand in this fight and do what it can to stop the 
ravages of the filthy curse, smallpox. Many things have been 
tried, but all have failed. Vaccination and inoculation have 
both been well tried, but the smallpox is here, there, and all 
over the earth, and as defiant to-day as at the close of each day 
or century of the historic past. 

Our school charter reads: "To improve on our present 
systems of surgery, obstetrics, and treatment of diseases gen- 
erally." I will confine myself to that charter. We claim to 
use any means that are better than any known method of the 
past, as used in surgery, as used in obstetrics, and the treatment 
of diseases generally. It will not be my object to speak of the 
improvements made by osteopathy in surgery and obstetrics, 
nor in treating diseases of climate or diseases of the different 
seasons of the year, but to give my reason for a change in our 
method of treating smallpox and other contagious diseases. 

Smallpox is the most dreadful disease known to the human 
family. It has killed its countless millions, and has been a 
deadly terror for thousands of years. It visits and slays men, 
women, and children of all nations, civilized and savage. It 
has no mercy on any human. It lives on human flesh only; 
nothing but human blood has been found or known that will 
appease its wrath. All of this the people of the earth have 
learned by sad experience, but have been powerless to combat 
it. If we would prevent the ravages of the disease, it is first 
necessary for me to make an inquiry into its nature. 

Does the virus, the seed, or the substance of smallpox act 
so as to corrode the albumin, blood, and fat? Does it cause the 
magnetic battery of man to call into the system such gases as 
ammonia and phosphorus and set them on fire by electricity, 
exploding the nitrogen that is stored so abundantly in the 
cellular system of the body? Smallpox does something. What 
is it? Surely some vital shock causes this awful confusion. 



SMALLPOX. 271 

Have all the doors of the excretories been shut? Does the 
introduction of the germ of smallpox into the lungs cause a con- 
tracture of its cellular system, by means of which the virus is 
retained in the system until the eruption is developed? To the 
writer this is reasonable. Has not man gone far enough with 
his abortive method of reasoning to halt and think on other 
lines? We should learn what the physical change is, and com- 
bat it accordingly. Do substances, beings, animals, trees, and 
stones throw off an incubating vitality of their own? Can 
their life-substance be conveyed to another body over a con- 
ducting wire, or is it conveyed by the atmosphere? Is there 
not a life-giving force common to all nature, and when that force 
passes from a diseased human to another, does it not show by its 
action that it is a' living substance? 

The Origin of Contagious Diseases. 

Do contagions or contagious diseases come from seeds of 
matter, or from changes of the powers of life, life-activities be- 
ing modified by force of compounds that have been driven from 
natural channels, and creating new or abnormal activities that 
unite substances into other compounds that are poisonous to 
the healthy fluid of animal life? Thus a snake-bite or its virus 
only causes an explosive shock to the cells of different gases, 
whose union, when disturbed by other additions, causes univer- 
sal explosion and spills substances that are poisonous to the con- 
tents of other cells. Explosion and death take place when union 
with the fluids of other cells or different kinds occurs. Not a 
germ, but an electric condition, shock, or change in natural 
functioning, causes changes of the corpuscles in blood, and this 
changed blood, when ejected into mucous membranes, is mis- 
taken for foreign germs. 

Do contagions pass from the diseased person to the healthy 
person by emigrating bugs? If by emigrating from one to the 



272 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

other, where do they camp to enter this new physiological field? 
Do they camp or locate in the ears, on our heads or our backs, or 
do those germs wisely select the lungs, where there is an abund- 
ant supply of food, water, and air? If each air-cell of the five 
lobes is a house that would accommodate a couple of germs, 
male and female, which fertilize the nerve-cells with the seed of 
smallpox, how many houses would be filled when all had an 
occupant? We have reason to believe that all contagious dis- 
eases seek the lungs to pasture and deposit their germs. 

In the neck will be found the nerves that rally all forces 
which convey contagious vapors or seeds into the air-cells where 
the nerve-terminals open the mouths of secretion and take up 
the life-gases of smallpox and other contagions and convey that 
substance to the nerve-cells for development through all stages 
to perfect eruption of measles, chickenpox, or any other rash 
on to smallpox. Thus we see that the vital vapor enters the 
body by way of the lungs, first entering the air-cells, and then 
being taken up by the mouths of the nerves at the periphery, 
and conveyed to the nerve-cells or cavities for development and 
general distribution to the whole cellular system of the body, 
beginning with the fascia and ending with the skin. I think by 
this time the student of Nature will seek to know the cause of 
the great physiological changes that we see in eruptive fevers, 
such as smallpox, measles, chickenpox, and all glandular changes 
as found in mumps, typhoid fever, syphilis, tuberculosis, and 
chronic dysentery. I think I have pointed out just how smallpox 
and many other diseases enter the system of nutrition, construc- 
tion, and renovation, leaving deposits in blood-vessels, lym- 
phatics and the membranous and cellular systems, whose decom- 
position feeds and sustains the deadly diseases of consumption, 
chronic dysentery, diphtheria, cancer, Bright 's disease, scrofula, 
and many others equally destructive. With the knowledge of 
how and where the germ is deposited, how it is fed and grows to 



SMALLPOX. 273 

universal occupancy of the system, we have but little to seek, 

* except to know how to work the machinery and cause it to 
unload. 

Jenner, of the seventeenth century, reasoned that man 
could ward off the disease by the use of vaccine matter, which is 

j only localized, modified smallpox. We feel proud of his energy 
as shown in his effort to modify the ravages of smallpox. We 
know that his object was good, and that if one infectious poison 

I was in possession of the body, it would hold it immune to other 
infections. I say, I believe that his object was good, but I do 
believe other substances will do the warding off of disease by pos- 
session just as well as or better than vaccine matter, and have 

I no bad effects follow their use. I chose cantharides as a sub- 
stitute for vaccine, and I will give my reasons for looking for 

' something better than the vaccine matter that is taken from 
a sick cow with an eruption that appears on her teats or bag. 
This was originally taken into the milkmaid's hands in any 
place that the skin had a fresh crack or broken surface in which 
the virus could enter the skin for development to the rash. 

The following definition of "vaccine" is taken from Dun- 
glison : ' ' The cowpox is a disease of the cow arising spontane- 
ously or perhaps from the smallpox contagion of man, or from 
the matter of grease in horses conveyed by the milkers, which, 
if transmitted to man by means of inoculation, may preserve 
him from smallpox contagion. The promulgation of this valu- 
able property of the vaccine virus is due to Dr. Jenner, who, after 
many experiments, extending over twenty years, made a definite 
announcement in 1798 regarding the nature of the virus." 

In Dunglison's definition he speaks of spontaneous produc- 
tion in the cowpox; he is not positive that it is spontaneous. 
Neither Dr. Jenner nor Dunglison has told us any more of the 
origin of the cowpox than that it comes on the cow spontane- 
ously, or from grease-heel of the horse, or it is smallpox caught 



274 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

by inoculation from a milkhand who had smallpox while he 
handled the cow's teats. You see, they are "supposed-sos." 
They both guess and suppose to a finish. From what both 
have said, I will guess A hat both have failed to find or know any- 
thing of the cause of the cowpox. Neither have left any light 
for the reader. 

Use of Vaccine. 
Now we will take up the subject of immunity from small- 
pox by the use of vaccine. I will not dispute that smallpox 
cannot enter the system during the time that vaccine is acting 
on the system as an eruptive fever. It is reasonable to conclude 
that the eruptive fever that goes with vaccine will hold the fort 
of life against any other eruptive substances and prevent it 
from being taken up and receiving vitality. Suppose it will 
hold the system immune by occupancy until the system has 
washed itself to purity from the old before a new virus will take 
effect and develop to any rash. Then we see that all safety from 
smallpox lies in the fact that the system is full of cow-rot, and 
that there is no place for smallpox nor the rot or seed of any 
other contagious disease. Cantharides is a safer preventive 
than vaccine, and why? First, the cow is subject to lung dis- 
eases, tuberculosis, and pneumonia ; so much so that for safety 
from diseased milk very stringent laws have been enacted to 
prevent its use. The cow has about as many diseases as man, 
or more: cancer, blackleg, erysipelas of the mouth, pink- 
eye, and many other diseases; she has lockjaw, and she has 
poison in her system that will and does kill human beings 
when put into their systems. Then, if Jenner's philosophy is 
true, that one animal poison while in the body will keep out 
others by occupancy, we should select from the species that are 
not known to be diseased. We do know the cow to be a very 
much diseased beast, and, since her blood has been inserted 



SMAI^POX. 275 

into man's system, that man's death-ratio from cancer, scrof- 
ula, and consumption has asked for and received from two to 
four hundred thousand humans each year in America alone. 
Smallpox doctors have been in the Jenner rut since the year 
1798. Jenner reasoned from the cowpox and the grease-heel 
of the horse, or, as we say in America, "scratches." He and 
all the M.D.s of Europe have been good men and have kept 
their feet in the rut of tradition, particularly in fighting small- 
pox, and as the English did in fighting the Boers. The English- 
men fought well without reason, but the Boers "licked" them 
every time until all their resources were exhausted and they had 
to submit to a so-called surrender. What did the Boers do? 
They moved out of the old English and German ruts of war, 
and fought and thought with power to suit the occasion and 
with consummate skill. We read reports of all their battles, 
following Johnny Bull and the Dutch, with Johnny repeatedly 
getting thrashed and sending for another general, who would 
come in and fight just as the officer did whom he succeeded. 
He walked out bravely as a lion, and also got whipped. My 
blood is English, Scotch, and German, but it has been in Amer- 
ica for four generations, and I feel free to say that I hate a hen 
that sits on a nest that has no eggs in it just because her grand- 
mother sat there. If she sits on nothing but rotten eggs, what 
will she get but rotten chickens, like the rotten virus that Jenner 
put under his hen of reason one hundred years ago ? But his 
work was good, but minus the reasoning that one rotten sub- 
stance was all the system could combat at one time, and if 
the patient was kept full of horse- and cow-rot, that the seeds 
of smallpox could not push out the cow-rot and get possession 
of the system. I believe we are on safe ground to cut a more 
extended system of experimenting with smallpox and its abate- 
ment by the cantharides or any substance that would create an 
mfectious fever. When we have an infectious fever, that fever 



276 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

has possession of the whole body, and, by all rules of reason, will 
hold possession until it has completed its work. Then other 
infections may take possession of the body and proceed to plant 
that seed of another eruptive fever and hold the body immune 
to all others. "Stop that!" The people have commenced to 
say, "Stop that!" for many hosts are so uselessly murdered 
daily by poisons forced into their systems by hypodermic 
syringes. 

Jenner's Command Not Heeded. 
It is claimed that Jenner commanded the sun (smallpox) 
to stand. It did not stand. Others before and since his day 
have tried cowpox and grease-heel of the horse, but both have 
failed. Isolation reports a hopeless failure. Pest-houses are 
in all cities, and so is smallpox. People are afraid of it. The 
doctor is the first to run. It is a fight he will not go into. He 
claims that it is better to run than to get whipped. I believe 
that the philosophy of Jenner, the groomsman and the milk- 
maid, is good, but it gives nothing to the world excepting the 
accidental cure or supposed preventive to smallpox. No rea- 
son was given why one poison would immune the person from 
another poison. Jenner simply accepted, tried, and adopted 
the supposed remedial powers of cowpox and sore or cankered 
heels of the horse. He and his disciples gave us no caution nor 
hint that the grease-heel of the horse might be a venereal dis- 
ease peculiar to the horse only. They told us nothing of the 
cowpox, whether or not it was venereal in nature, or whether, 
like the adoption of most medical "remedies" the doctor uses 
or has used, it came to notice by accident. I do not wish in 
the least to antagonize the effort of Jenner. I think it was 
good, but I do think that more effective and less dangerous 
substances can be used than the putrid compounds of variola. 
I believe that this philosophy which I present can and will be 



SMALLPOX. 277 

found as protective against leprosy, measles, and syphilis as 
against smallpox and other infectious contagions. This is the 
twentieth century. Our school was created to improve on the 
past. I<et us keep step with the music of progress. 

Credit WhkrE Credit Is Due. 
We should be thankful to our ancestors, and give them 
credit for all their various methods of combating smallpox. 
Give them praise and love. They thought that they had found 
a remedy that could modify the death-dealing scourge, small- 
pox. The popular opinion of the world is that smallpox has 
been greatly reduced in its destruction of human life all over 
the world since the introduction of vaccination by Jenner. To 
him is due the credit of rescue from the unmerciful slaughter of 
all races of men. That belief is shared in and practiced now by 
all nations and people on earth. It is not my object to dig up 
his bones and abuse him. I believe the philosophy of fighting 
one infection with another infectious substance that could hold 
the body immune by long and continuous possession is good 
and was good. Like any benefactor, he perhaps did not select 
the best material to bring his thoughts to their best and most 
defiant proofs. Many persons have died who have been vac- 
cinated with the blood of the cow or horse. Many have gone 
into decay, consumption, cancerous ulcers, and lost both limbs 
and life from diseases latent in the cow and horse, many of them 
supposed to be syphilitic and gonorrhceal. The cow and horse 
have many diseases loathsome in effect which, through lack of 
caution, had not been seen or known of when the virus was taken 
from the animal for man's use and protection. This has been 
the danger in using dead pus from the cow and horse that had 
glanders, gleet, farcy, and other deadly diseases. I think Jen- 
ner was right in his object, but he made a bad choice of germi- 
fuge to ward off infections. Reason at once brings us to con- 



278 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

elude that, as the horse and cow are both very subject to many 
diseases equally as dangerous as smallpox itself, to choose their 
blood, let it decompose and rot, and then insert that blood into 
the human body, would be dangerously unwise, and it should 
go out of use as soon as a safe and better substitute is found. 
I have chosen the can thar ides, and will give the reasons why 
I have chosen it as a better substance than that of the cow or 
horse. 

Dangers op Vaccination. 
When we read of the diseases to which the cow and horse 
are subject, we find them to be very numerous. They are 
almost equal to those that attack the human race in variety, 
and are just as deadly. Our oldest and youngest authors all 
talk much about smallpox. They talk in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, 
Sanskrit, German, and in all known and unknown tongues 
about the disease and its mysterious workings ; but when they 
are weighed by an American who only wants to know the ' 'how " 
and "why" of anything, he is forced to say that he is no wiser 
when he has read one thousand authors than he was before he 
had read a single work on smallpox. They all talk much, but 
make no point that is positively sure to be depended on by him 
who wants an up-to-date truth proven by the facts of demon- 
stration. One says vaccination immunes. Another says it does 
not. Vaccination may prevent one-half from the contagion, but 
does not prevent the virus from killing thousands with lock- 
jaw, syphilis, gonorrhoea, and syphilitic tuberculosis. I would 
like at this time to report that I had found some light on the 
mysterious disease, smallpox. So far I am only able to report, 
"Hold out your arm and take your poison." The doctor wants 
fifty cents. I believe that if the fifty cents were taken out of 
vaccination that the doctor gets and lives on, the practice would 
die out. The doctor knows that he is as afraid of smallpox after 






SMALLPOX. 279 

his arm has been filled with cow-rot as he was before. He fears 
that his immunity will not stand up to him when he gets in the 
ring and boxes with smallpox. 

When all the good has been said in favor of vaccination, 
the world only learns that for years it has been a hopeless fail- 
ure and so confirmed. If you go into towns and cities where 
the most rigid systems to compel people to become vaccinated 
exist, you will find just as much smallpox or more than 
where than has been no vaccination at all. To-day, with all 
the police force and cow-rot that has been forced into men, 
women, and children, there is no less smallpox. I believe the 
time is close at hand when forcible vaccination will not be nec- 
essary, as a better method, and one that will do the work and 
leave no bad effects as in the case of vaccination with the cow, 
horse, and other animal poisons, has been found. The dread 
of disease and death by vaccination causes people to hesitate 
to allow vaccine matter to be put into the arms of children 
and older persons by military force. When they learn that a 
fly blister as large as a fifty-cent piece on the arm will keep off 
smallpox in all cases, there will be no fear nor trouble about 
smallpox or vaccination. 

Stand Ready for thk Fight. 
I have followed the history of the ravages of smallpox as 
presented by the most learned historians of all ages as far back 
as the pen of man has given any record of the malady. All have 
said they do not know what it is nor how to stop its eternal 
progress, knowing that it is in possession of the whole globe. I 
am asked by students and graduates of the American School of 
Osteopathy what I would advise them to do in case smallpox 
should break out; would I advise them to stand, or "skip out" 
and leave their patients, many or few, who did not have the 
smallpox, to suffer and die ? I advised them to agree with facts 



280 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

already proven : that smallpox is an infectious disease, also con- 
tagious; also that the statutes in many parts of the world 
obliged both old and young to be vaccinated that the body 
might be disinfected, and force all houses in which there had 
been smallpox to be disinfected. Then the thought came that 
the laws would be enforced to "prevent the spread" of the dis- 
ease, and that vaccination was believed to be a reliable disin- 
fectant to the body, and there was no choice but to show an 
arm with marks of effective vaccination or of having taken a 
dope of vaccine matter into the system, with syphilis, tuber- 
culosis, leprosy, and all other diseases of man and beast which 
are attributes of vaccine, killing nearly a million each year from 
syphilitic and other diseases transmitted from diseased persons 
and glandered horses and cattle from which the vaccine is taken. 
A legal rot, and legally put in your arm and that of your wife 
and child, to eat out your lungs with syphilis and your brain 
with glanders. I say to all sensible persons: Wake up and 
seek a deadly germicide to smallpox, and when you find any- 
thing better than the rotten flesh of the horse or cow, I say, use 
it, if you find it to be better than the old, or you are an osteo- 
pathic coward. Our school was chartered and built to improve 
on the old theories for man's good, and you must show it by 
your works. Read the charter of your school every night 
before you go to bed. It says "improve" on old theories. 

A few words on germifuge, which, according to Dunglison, 
means "to expel or drive away germs; any agent that will 
destroy germs or micro-organisms or their spores, on which con- 
tagious diseases may depend ; mercury chlorid, iodid, aluminium 
acetate, sulfurous acid, heat at continuous temperature of 230 
degrees and over." To find a successful germifuge for small- 
pox has been the anxious study of the whole world for all time. 
Prayer has been tried — no good, no life saved. Jenner sought 
to insert into the body a modified poison that would stay in the 



SMAIXPOX. 28l 

system as a perpetual germifuge for smallpox. His idea was 
good, but there is a doubt as to his choice of substances being 
the best. A failure of all systems to meet and banish smallpox 
stands recorded to-day. The osteopath is in the contest, and 
to him the world looks for light and hopes for relief from 
smallpox. 

Victory in a New Germicide. 
A successful hunt for an innocent and trustworthy germ- 
icide for smallpox I felt confident would be successful early in 
the twentieth century if we would expel the vaccine and do 
some reasoning. Should an osteopathic doctor come in con- 
tact with a case of smallpox, with the rash just breaking out, 
would you recommend any medicines, palliatives in the drug 
line, in the treatment ? I would not. His remedies would be con- 
fined to the nerves of the excretory system, which have proven 
to be all that is necessary. Our success without drugs has been 
very satisfactory in all cases treated and reported. In all cases 
of smallpox that I met in my practice in the sixties and treated 
with medicine, I could give only temporary relief by opiates. 
I then believed that there was danger in stopping the fluids in 
the system by sedatives. Diuretics alone seemed the best of 
all. Fermentation of fluids seemed to be the dangerous condi- 
tion to be avoided by a doctor of medicine or in any other sys- 
tem of relief. I often think that death comes from poison 
absorbed from diseased gases generated in the system. When 
the fluids of the body are formed, they are chemically pure, full 
of life, and should pass out and on for uses for which they are 
designed. No delays can be tolerated after they are prepared 
for use. It is only reasonable to look for fermentation of fluids 
if delayed too long in the cellular system of nerves, of fascia, or 
other parts or organs of the system. Thus death follows shocks 
to the cellular system from any cause. A closing of cells with 






282 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY 

their fluids holds their contents, and this is followed by fermen- 
tation. To ferment any substance will cost the life of all sub- 
stances that are fermented, their organic life as such giving 
place to the gases that are produced by fermentation. Thus a 
complete vital change appears in all substances that ferment. 
A collapse of cells comes with fermentation, which fills cells to 
the point of rupture and deposits gas in the fascia to be passed 
out by the porous system. A failure to exit through the skin 
is followed by eruptive inflammation — thus a pock. I think 
we can reason fairly correctly when we begin with the lungs 
and trace the poisonous seeds, fumes, or gases of smallpox as 
they are inhaled by the lungs, taken into the air-cells of the 
lungs, where the nerve-terminals in the mucous membrane, with 
open mouths, receive and convey nutrition to the nerve-cells 
for their action and uses. If the terminals receive pure food, 
good work will naturally follow ; but if food has poisons instead, 
then Nature would not be true to itself if it did not build dis- 
eased conditions of diseased matter. Thus we know how and 
why the pock is builded of diseased matter. A little leaven 
leaveneth the whole lump. This leaven was conceived in the 
lungs and became the champion over life by distributing the 
leaven through the whole system or lump, beginning with the 
air-cells of the lungs and ending with the cells of gas, fat-cells, 
and lymphatic cells of the system, the nerves, blood-supply of 
the superficial fascia, and the cellular system of blood- and 
nerve- supply of the skin that covers the entire body. Thus we 
see a little yeast has been magnified and added to. The system 
has gone through its deadly ferment. 

What Smallpox Dobs. 
Smallpox does its deadly work by closing the cystic and 
lymphatic ducts. The reader will see that if a cylinder is closed 
at both ends whilst that tube is filled with animal fluids, death 



SMALLPOX. 283 

to the fluids will occur. Then fermentation will set up and 
inflate both tube and cyst, which will cause a rupture and col- 
lapse of lymphatic ducts and force the contents into the cellu- 
lar membranes of the fascia, which form pus from dead fluids 
of the adjacent region. The fumes or vital ether, when inhaled 
by the lungs, would naturally be taken up as nourishment by 
the nerve-terminals of the lungs and conveyed directly to the 
nerve-cells. Thus the seeds of smallpox are soon conveyed to the 
cells of the fascia, then by the lymphatics to the whole gland- 
ular system, so that the places of entry are easily reached by 
the living virus of variola. Then its vital action has the aid of 
the whole system of nerves, including the motor, the sensory, 
and the nutritive, to continue the process to completion of all 
the work from conception to the complete smallpox. All this 
we know before we understand how to treat the disease suc- 
cessfully. If we know where the cut-off is, then we are at ease 
as to what to do to let out dead fluids, even after the eruption 
has appeared, and know how to do it. All fluids are conveyed 
through the body by arteries, veins, lymphatics, and excre- 
tory and secretory ducts. Let us take a case for reason and 
relief — a case that has gone on to the eruptive stage. Can we do 
any good? Had we better leave the patient and make no effort 
to relieve the sufferer? Before you can give an honest answer 
to this grave question, you must know the body in all its parts 
and functions. You must be correct on the lymphatic and 
cellular systems. You must reason that the lymphatics must 
never stop action by closure of tubes. Remember that a lym- 
phatic duct is full of lymph that must be taken to the nerves 
for constructive purposes, and delayed lymph or chyle in any 
tube or cell dies, ferments, inflames, and forms pus, which proc- 
ess is death to the surrounding flesh, all being the effect of the 
shock given to the system from virus poison taken up by per- 
ipheries and conveyed to the nerve-cells. We should look out 



284 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

for free action of cellular and lymphatic systems ; we are com- 
bating constriction in all cases of variola. The constriction of 
nerves and muscles is the force that shuts down circulation and 
retains fluids to deadly decay. 

Treatment op Smallpox. 
As all evidences obtainable by human reason point directly 
to the lungs and to the womb-like cells as the place in which 
the virus of smallpox deposits its seed for growth, from concep- 
tion to fully developed smallpox, to combat this malady suc- 
cessfully we must philosophize and select the nerves that deal 
with sensation, motion, nutrition, and the voluntary and invol- 
untary forces of the lungs. Because of the demand that is on 
the excretory nerves to disgorge the lymphatics and cells of the 
system, the same nerve-cells may be strengthened by nourishing 
food, taken up by the peripheral system of nerves of the lungs 
and conveyed to the nerve-cells of the lungs and on to the whole 
system. Then we have force to take up vitality in place of the 
poisonous compound that is being generated by the deadly fluids 
as the vital fumes of smallpox form and throw off and are tak- 
en up by the absorbent vessels. Thus we have given Nature a 
chance to strengthen its energies to purify the body by casting 
out the dead substances, after which nutrition is in full posses- 
sion, with power and pure material to repair the injurious work 
following constriction, congestion, inflammation, and pus-forma- 
tion. Let us examine the neck carefully, and see if it is con- 
stricted. If so, we have a disease of constriction, and are war- 
ranted in addressing our attention to the vaso-constrictors. We 
must modify that constriction] by adjusting the bones of the 
neck, that the famishing nerves may be quieted by arterial nutri- 
tious blood. We must also address our attention to the dilators, 
which control the quantity of blood that should or does pass 
through them, and relieve the fascia of impacted lymphatic 



SMALLPOX. 285 

cells and increase the circulation of blood through the fascia of 
the whole system. Thus we are applying our remedies to the 
neck, where the mischief is being done by the abnormal condi- 
tion of the vaso-constrictor and vaso-dilator nerves. As the 
constrictor nerves of the neck are the most important in treating 
smallpox, and as the reason why has just been given, we will 
continue the exploration to the dorsal, lumbar, and sacral 
nerves. Give much attention to the upper dorsal system for 
the relief of the lungs from the constriction that exists to a pow- 
erful degree, during the process from gestation to the period of 
convalescence and complete recovery. When the vital fumes 
of smallpox are conveyed from the periphery to the mater- 
nal nerve-cells of the lungs, they cause a shock by irritation, 
which causes constricture of the sphincter system of cells, 
and retains this vital ether for the purpose of adding to the 
germ of smallpox nutriment which develops a sufficient quan- 
tity of this vital gas to supply the whole system with the yeast 
of development to all fluid cells from lymph to chyle. Thus 
it is ready to enter and proceed successfully with its deadly war 
with all that is vital in the human system. As it lives upon 
vitality and must be deposited in the most vital parts of the 
system for development, we see as a result that it consumes 
this vitality in the whole system, and the effect is what we call 
death. There is no doubt about the fact that if the excretory 
system of cells, glands, and lymphatics is greatly impeded in 
throwing waste fluids of the body, accumulation follows, then 
fermentation, with inflammation added to congestion and fer- 
mentation. By this time all the cells are filled with dead mat- 
ter, fluids, and gases. All glands of the body become loaded 
with inflamed fluids and are burning with fever; then all lym- 
phatics and nerves of the superficial fascia and its blood-vessels 
and porous systems are overcome by irritation and pressure by 
the bulky deposits in the superficial fascia; then follows the 



286 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

preparation to get this dead pus out of the fascia. To do this, 
the excretory ducts must be enlarged. Boils form in the skin 
and rot out holes to drain the fascia where the great mischief of 
smallpox is done. 

Good Nursing. 
After the rash appears, the doctor can do but little more 
than nurse, feed, and look to comfortable rooms, dress boils, 
and such other work as the condition may suggest to his judg- 
ment and experience. Look after the nerves of motion of the 
lower dorsal, the nerves of the neck, and also the lumbar nerves. 
The renal nerves keep the veins free to drain in fullest flow. 
Let the patient smell for a few full breaths a handkerchief with 
ten or twelve drops of cantharidin. Never take more than 
three full breaths from the handkerchief at a time, and not 
oftener than twice a day, and not more than three days in suc- 
cession, for fear of irritating the lungs too much by the canthar- 
ides that is in the tincture. A few breaths of tincture of can- 
tharidin dropped on a handkerchief will act on the breath and 
start the kidneys to active draining, and also cause the lym- 
phatics of the fascia to throw out their contents. Before the 
doctor of osteopathy enters a room of smallpox, he must take 
time to allow a blister as large as a dollar to draw on the out- 
side of his arm about three inches above the elbow. I would 
not have any fear of even confluent smallpox after my arm had 
a well-drawn blister. It will hold you immune to all danger. 
I believe I am perfectly safe in so advising osteopaths — or all 
people, for that matter. Why does man take smallpox, and 
why is his dog immune to the disease, both having been exposed 
at the same time? Because all animals below the man have 
musks of immunity that are more powerful than the fumes 
or germs of smallpox, measles, mumps, cholera, yellow fever, 
and so on to the general list of human ills. Nature has fur- 



SMALLPOX. 287 

nished the flesh-eating birds, animals, and reptiles with protect- 
ive musks or germifuge. Many can be smelled one mile or 
more. Any wild beast or bird can eat the most putrid flesh 
of the dead mad-dog, smallpox, or leper with perfect safety. 
They would be failures in nature if they would take smallpox 
or hydrophobia and get wild and die. We would soon be with- 
out the buzzard or any other scavenger to clean the earth of 
putrescence. But, as man's germicidal powers cannot resist 
the smallpox, he must try to arm himself with an artificial sub- 
stitute, which I believe we can do and have done with wonder- 
ful success in the use of the cantharidin as now reported in 
hundreds of cases. It creates an infectious fever that is inno- 
cent in after-effects, and will hold full possession of the body 
and defend it from all other infections whilst it has possession, 
and be a perfect immunity to smallpox at last. 

I believe all immunities are based on the philosophy or law 
of possession. " Possession is nine points of the law," and is 
just as good in contagious infections as in governments or any 
forceful possession of property or power. 

An Application of This Principle. 
If you have measles in your body, it will hold the body and 
defy all contagions to enter while it has possession. We have 
no report from history of any person taking the mumps, meas- 
les, chicken-pox, or any contagion during the time that small- 
pox has possession of the body and is doing its work as an 
infectious disease. I believe we have- a reasonable philosophy 
in the use of cantharidin. Start an infectious and innocent 
fever that will defy the entry of variolus poisons and hold 
man, woman, and child perfctly safe amidst smallpox, mumps, 
measles, and other contagions. This treatise of the subject of 
smallpox is given for you to ponder on it. I believe the days 
of smallpox are numbered in the minds of osteopaths who can 
and do reason. 



288 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

Measles. 

Let me ask, What is the measles? How does it get in and 
out of the body? Well, it is some kind of poison that comes 
out of the lungs of another person, who has poison in his system 
that has gotten strong enough to poison two people. That 
poisoned air was breathed from No. i by No. 2. When the 
poisoned air was taken into the lungs of No. 2, the nerve- 
terminals of the lungs took in the poison by the periphery and 
carried it to the nerve-cells. Then the work of growth of the 
poison began in the cells, and, multiplying, carried on its poison 
to the nerve-cells of the lymphatics of the deep and suoerficial 
fascia, which did the rest of the work by fermentation. 

If disease is so highly attenuated, so ethereal, and pene- 
trable in quality, and multiple in atoms, and a breath of air, two 
quarts or more, are taken into the lungs fully charged with con- 
tagion, how many thousand air-cells could be impregnated by 
one single breath ? Say we take a case of measles into a school- 
room of sixty pupils, in a warm and poorly oxygenized atmos- 
phere all day, would not the living gas thrown off from active 
measles enter and irritate the air-cells and close the most irri- 
table cells with the poisonous gas retained for active devel- 
opment in those womb-like departments in the lungs? 

Now you have the seeds in thousands of cells, which are as 
vital and well supplied by nerves and blood as the womb itself. 
Would not reason see the development of millions more of the 
vital beings who get their nourishment from the vitality found 
in the human fascia, which comes nearer to the surface in the 
lungs than in any other part of the system, except it be the 
womb? 

In proof of the certainty of measles being taken up by the 
lungs at one breath and caught by the secretions and conveyed 
to the universal system of fascia to develop the contagion, I will 
give the case of one of my boys who was sick with a cold, as I 






SMALLPOX. 289 

supposed. The symptoms were watering of eyes, cough, fever, 
and headache. He was in the country about eight miles from 
home, and on our return he stopped to get his books at a small 
school-house. He ran in, picked up his books that were lying 
upon the desk, walked the length of the room, which was about 
forty feet, was not there over half a minute, and in just nine days 
forty- two children broke out with measles. So certain is con- 
tagion to be taken up by the nerves and vitalizing fluids of the 
fascia. 

It seems that all the fascia needs to develop anything is to 
have the substance planted in its arms for construction; the 
work will be done, labeled, and handed out for inspection by 
the inspectors of all works. 

A Comparison. 
In smallpox the motor energy must be equal to the force 
that would convey albumin through all tissues. In measles it 
would be less, and so on according to the thickness of the fluids 
present. The power to drive dead fluids from fascia must be 
much greater in smallpox than in cases of measles. We see 
why the pulse of smallpox is so powerful during development 
of the pox. After killing the fluids by retention in the fascia of 
the skin, a still greater force is created by injury to the nerve- 
fibers of the fascia. Then the motor energy appears, and all 
the powers of life combine to help the arteries force the fluids 
through the skin and push them to the fascia of the skin to be 
eliminated. In some parts elimination fails ; such places are 
called pocks. They suppurate and drop out, leaving a pit, the 
pock-mark. Now had the nerves of the skin and fascia not been 
irritated, contracting the skin in opposition to the fascia pass- 
ing its dead fluids through the excretory ducts of the skin, we 
probably would have had no eruption. Is it not quite reason- 
able to conclude that after the heart overloads the fascia and 
the nerves lose their control by pressure of fluids, all that is 



290 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

left is chemical action to the production of pus, which throws 
it out of the fascia in intervening spaces ? Then, should the fas- 
cia have greater destruction of its substances, we have one spot 
running into others, and we have "confluent smallpox." 

Scarlet Fever. 

As defined by allopathy: "Scarlet fever begins with a 
short period of tired feeling. A short period of chilly sensation, 
fullness of eyes, and sore throat. In a few hours fever begins 
with great heat in back of head. It soon extends all over the 
body. Sick stomach and vomiting generally accompany the dis- 
ease. Rash of a red color begins on the back, and extends to 
the throat and limbs. About the second or third day the fever is 
very high, from 100 to 104 , and generally lasts to the fifth or 
seventh day, at which time fever begins to diminish, with itch- 
ing over the body. The skin at this time throws off all the 
dead scales that had been red rash in the fore part of the dis- 
ease. Often the lining membranes of the mouth, throat, and 
tonsils slough and bleed. Also pus is often formed just under 
the skin in front of the throat. Such cases usually die." The 
latter is very true if treated by a drug practitioner. 

Scarlet fever, as defined by osteopathy, is a disease gener- 
ally of the early spring and late fall seasons. Generally it comes 
with cold and damp weather during east winds. It begins 
with sore throat, chilly and tired feelings, followed with head- 
ache and vomiting. In a few hours the chilly feeling leaves 
and a high fever sets in. The patient is rounded in chest, abdo- 
men, face, and limbs by congestion of the fascia and all of the 
lymphatic glands. This stagnation will soon begin its work of 
fermentation of the fluids of fascia, then you see the rash. If you 
do not want to see the rash and sloughing of throat, with a dead 
patient, I would advise you to train your guns on the blood, 
nerves, and lymphatics of the fascia and stop the cause at once, 
or quit. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Obesity. 



When Reason Begins. 

When we eat and drink, we do so because we get hungry. 
We do that for many years before we try to reason why we 
grow from small to large-sized bodies, of bone and muscle. We 
get too fat or too lean, we gain or lose in flesh. We are some- 
times with tolerably good strength, but usually strength is lost. 
We know we are not what we have been; we are much larger, 
but have little strength. So much we know and stop. We are 
fat or lean, but we do not know why. We eat and drink about 
the same kind of diet. Now we want to lose the surplus fat, 
or add enough to get back to our old standard of size and 
strength. 

A Dyspeptic Condition. 
In trying to reason on the cause of these conditions, I am 
forced, in conclusion, to believe that these deposits of fat are 
the effect of a dyspeptic condition of the nerves of nutrition of 
the fascia, which should consume such fluids, and digest and 
appropriate the same to the energies and strength of the body. 
That failure to take up, digest, and use as fast as the supplies 
come is the cause of the filling up of oily fluids in the spongy 
tissues under the skin and through the body. I believe the 
maternal process is cut off from the spinal cord at the place 
where such energies issue from the cord. We must learn just 
where such interference is located, and treat for the renewal of 



292 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

the forces ; then we can reasonably hope to see the fat consumed 
and corpulency reduced by the process of normal consumption. 
Now we have arrived at the point to locate and establish 
our observations. We want a clear and unobstructed view of 
the subject that we are about to explore, that we may arrive 
at a satisfactory and philosophical conclusion. We must have 
facts to build upon or our foundation will surely give way. 
We must have two persons of unnatural conditions, the one 
abnormally fat, the other abnormally lean. One is too great 
in size, the other with a very dwarfed condition of the whole 
system. The first thing necessary to a foundation to a philo- 
sophical observatory is knowledge on the "hows" and "whys" 
of animal construction; of supplies, how consumed and appro- 
priated, and what dispositon is made of this material after 
being appropriated. We should carefully inspect the machin- 
ery of digestion, the machinery of construction, the machinery 
of renovation, and must thoroughly know these three proc- 
esses. Then we are confronted with the question, Why is it 
that two persons eating at the same table, one will take up and 
deposit flesh-making substances to burdensome abnormality, 
while the other takes on no flesh at all. Is not this surplus 
amount of fat an evidence of a dyspeptic condition of the nerves 
of force and action? Have not the nerves failed to drink this 
fatty fluid and convert it into motor energy, and when done 
with such substances, to convert them into gaseous fluids and 
expel them from the body? Certainly the far-reaching tele- 
scope of a well-trained philosopher can readily behold the cause, 
and he can form his conclusion that both variations are dyspep- 
tics The one should be treated to take up more of the sub- 
stances, and the other should be treated in such a manner as to 
cause him to burn up in the furnace of life all fuel sent there by 
Nature to keep it hot and in motion. Now we are ready to 
apply and exhibit with judgment the skill of a physiological 



OBESITY. 293 

engineer. If we understand the physiological processes of the 
preparation of substances, which when prepared are taken up 
and delivered to their proper places, and if we understand when 
those substances have supplied the natural energies and when 
they are placed into excretory ducts and carried away, then we 
are on the right line of reason, as engineers of the human body, 
to keep down unnatural deposits. 

Supply and Demand. 
As we proceed with our mental labor in discussion of why 
the system does not use the fat-substances as fast as delivered, 
we will be wise to confine our mental powers more carefully to 
inspect for better acquaintance just what power at the place 
of delivery fails to work up the fluid before it hardens to the 
degree of flesh. As we reason, such questions as these natu- 
rally arise : Do the nerves of the fascia have anything to do in 
constructing muscle or any other physical forms? If so, do 
they connect directly with the spinal cord? Do they become 
obstructed so as to suspend their functional action? How 
much suspension of nerve-power will drop life so low that it will 
not receive, prepare, and appropriate this fat-substance and 
prevent bulky accumulation? Then another question: How 
low a degree of nerve-vibration marks or would mark on the 
scale of nerve-action just when the body can no longer receive 
this crude material and go on with its process of taking up, 
digesting, and qualifying this fluid to enter the higher degrees 
of functional action? The doctors of past ages have been fail- 
ures because of their inability or simple failure to prosecute an 
acquaintance with the functions of physical action along the 
line which the foregoing has indicated. If you have given 
close attention and made yourself thoroughly acquainted with 
anatomy, physiology, and the suggestions they present, you 
will need no further explanation to know the cause and cure of 
obesity and atrophy. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



Ear-Wax and Its Uses. 

Nature Makes Nothing in Vain. 

That Nature makes nothing in vain is an established truth 
in the minds of all persons whose observation has created in 
them a desire to reason. That having been my faith for many 
years, I tried to discover why Nature had made and placed in 
man's head so much fine machinery just to make a little ear- 
wax. If "nothing is made in vain," what is that bitter stuff 
made for? It is always there. I have read many authors on 
ear-wax, and about the best the wise or unwise have said is that 
it would keep bugs and other insects out of our heads. I thought 
if that was all that it was made for, that Nature had done a 
great deal to "shoo" off the bugs. The idea that it was made 
bitter to the taste just to make bugs sick was, in my opinion, a 
weak philosophy, if Nature has never done any useless work or 
made anything in vain. At this time I saw the doors open and 
a good chance for the loaded mind to become unloaded and 
give us other uses for ear-wax than as a bug food and a lubri- 
cant for auditory nerves. In my search to find some more rea- 
sonable use or object that Nature had in forming so much deli- 
cate machinery for this product, I reasoned that this dry, hard 
wax was once in a gaseous or fluid state. 

I had, previous to this, about concluded to sit down with 
the rest of the doctors and say that wax was wax, when I was 
called to attend a fat boy of two summers who was reported 
to me to be dying with croup. I began to think more about 



BAR-WAX AND ITS USES. 295 

the dry wax that is always found in cases of croup, sore throat, 
tonsillitis, pneumonia, and all diseases of the lungs, nose, and 
head. On examination, I found the ear-wax dried up. So I 
put a few drops of glycerine, and after a minute's time a few 
drops of warm water, in the child's head, and kept a wet rag 
corked into its ear at intervals for twelve hours, and gave it 
osteopathic treatment. At the end of twelve hours all signs of 
croup had disappeared. To soften the wax, I used the glycer- 
ine, which, combining with the water, formed a harmless soap, 
better qualified for washing the ear and retaining the wax in 
solution than anything I have tried; for it is my opinion that 
the ear-wax should be kept in a fluid state. When in that state, 
the cells can more readily take it up and use it in the economy 
of life. 

An Experiment. 

The same day two ladies came to my house, sore in lungs, 
necks tied up, sore throats, fevers, and headache. As an exper- 
iment, in addition to osteopathic treatment, I put a few drops 
of glycerine into their ears, and followed it with water with 
which to soften and moisten the wax, which was hard and dry. 
Both were relieved of their sore lungs and throats in a short 
time, and in twenty-four hours they were about well, and the 
lungs were coughing out phlegm easily. 

From this I think that the cause of croup is largely the 
result of abnormality of the cerumen system. As the question 
of the uses of ear-wax has been before man for ages without an 
answer given that passes the line of conjecture, I think there 
can be no reason why a few looks through the field-glass of 
inquiry should not be given in a limited way on that great plane 
of fertility. As far as the writer can learn from reading and 
from other methods of inquiry, the power and use of ear-wax 
has never been known, looked for, or thought of as one of life's 



296 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

agents for good or bad health. Some one asks this question, 
"Why are you talking about ear-wax — the filthy stuff?" In 
answer, I ask, "What do you know about ear- wax?" The an- 
swer comes, "I don't know or care anything about the stuff." 
As my spleen is my organ of mirth, I let it bounce against my 
side a few times at such ignorance, and decide to give the wax 
subject more study than ever. I began to read all the books I 
could find on anatomy, physiology, and histology, for knowl- 
edge of the machinery that the wise Architect of that greatest 
of all temples had made to generate wax. A conviction came 
to me to be sure of its uses before I gave an opinion. We find 
the center of nerve-supply of the ears located at the base of the 
brain and side of the head, in front of the cerebellum, just below 
and near the center of the brain, a little above the foramen 
magnum, close to and behind the carotid arteries, deep and 
superficial, just above the entry of the spinal cord to the brain. 
Thus it is situated directly in communication with all nerves to 
and from the brain to every part of the body. Another ques- 
tion came, and another, only to come and go without an answer, 
such as : How and where is this wax made ? Of what use is it? 
Why so bitter? Has it any living principle? Is it produced 
in the brain, lymphatics, fascia, heart, lungs, nerves, or where? 
How much of it would kill a man ? Would it kill at all? What 
is it made for? Is it used by the nerves as food, or used by lungs, 
heart, or any organ as an active principle in the magnetic or 
electric forces? So far all authors are silent, not even offering 
a speculative opinion on how it is made and its uses. So far 
we have received nothing that would cause a man to think that 
the Creator had any great design when He made so wisely con- 
structed machinery and gave it such a prominent place. 

Make Haste Slowly. 
By this time the reader begins to mentally ask, "What 
does this wax evangelist know about the wax and its uses? " I 



i 



Ear-wax and its uses. 297 

wish to observe and respect all nature, and never be too hasty. 
My aim is to carefully explore all, and never leave until I find 
the cause and use that Nature's hand has placed in its work- 
ings, never overlooking small packages, as they often contain 
precious gems. I am sure no man of brilliant mind can pass 
this milepost and not hitch his team and do some precious load- 
ing. At this point my pen will give notice to all anatomists, 
histologists, chemists, and physiologists, that I will give "no 
sleep or slumber to their eyes" until I hear from them an an 
swer, yes or no, to these questions: For what purpose did 
God make ear-wax? Is it food or refuse? If food, what is nour- 
ished by it ? And how do you know your position is true and 
undebatable? 

Life means existence. Existence means subsistence. Sub- 
sistence means something to subsist upon, and of the degree of 
refinement to suit the skilled work which is found marked on 
the trestleboard of the wisest of all builders, Whose work is 
absolutely correct in form and action, and beautiful to behold. 
It calls out the admiration of man and God himself, Who did 
say of man: "Not only good, but very good." 

A Great Problem. 
I consider ear-wax one of the most important questions 
before the minds of our physiologists. The first and only knowl- 
edge of this substance begins with the observer's eye, when he 
beholds the dry wax as it is excreted and dropped into the cavi- 
ties of the ear. A question arises, and stands without answer : 
Is this substance which is commonly called ear-wax, technically 
called cerumen, dead, or is it alive while in this visible form? 
If dead, why and how did it loose its life? Why has it not been 
consumed if once a living substance? When alive, is it in the 
gaseous or fluid state? And when alive and consumed as 
nutriment by the system, what does it nourish? These are 



298 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

questions for the philosopher's attention; not his superficial, 
but his deepest thought. Why is it deposited in the center of 
the brain, if not to impart its vital principle to all nerves inter- 
ested in life and nutrition, both physical and vital? Its loca- 
tion, in itself, would indicate its importance. Another thought 
is, that no better place could be selected in which to establish 
and locate a universal supply office for the laborers of all parts 
of the whole superstructure. Another question arises : When 
we examine a person paralyzed on one side, why do we find 
this bread of life in such great quantities and not consumed? 
Have not one-half of the brain and the nerves of that whole side, 
limbs and all, lost their power of digestion? Is hemiplegia a 
dyspepsia of the nerves of nutriment of the brain and organs of 
that side? If so, we have some foundation on which to build 
an answer why this wax is not consumed and is dried up in the 
ears of the paralytic. The answer would be, that nutrition is 
suspended. 

Differences in Severity. 
Let us take croup, diphtheria, scarlet fever, la grippe, and 
all classes of colds on to pneumonia. They present about the 
same symptoms, differing more in degrees of severity than of 
place. All affect the tonsils, nostrils, membranous air-pass- 
ages, and lungs in about the same way. Croup exceeds, by con- 
tracting the trachea enough to impede the passing of air to the 
lungs. Diphtheria has more swelling of the tonsils, throat, 
and glands of the neck, but all depend upon the same blood- 
and nerve-supply, or a general law of blood-supply beginning 
with the arteries to the veins, lymphatics, glands, and ducts, to 
supply and take away all fluids that are of no farther use for 
vital and material support. As all authors have agreed that 
the brain furnishes the propelling forces to the nerves, it would 
be proper to inquire how the brain is nourished. The great 



EAR-WAX AND ITS USES. 299 

cerebral system of arteries supplies the brain, to which it gives 
materials of all fluids and electric and magnetic forces, which 
must be generated in the brain. Then a question arises: If 
the heart, lungs, liver, pancreas, lymphatics, kidneys, and all 
parts of the body depend upon the brain for power, what do 
they give in return ? If they give back anything, it must be of 
the kind of material of the organ from whence it comes. Each 
must help to keep up the universal harmony by furnishing its 
mite of its own kind. Suppose lung fever is the effect of lack 
of renal salts ; where would be a better place from which to dis- 
patch to renal organs than the ears, to reach the brain and 
touch the nerve that connects with the sympathetic ganglion? 
Suppose we take the cerumen, in its fluid state, from the 
ears, by secretions to the lungs, and see the action of air and 
other substances on it, and it on them. We may safely look 
for a general action of some kind. If it be magnetic food, we 
will see the magnetic power shown in the lungs and through 
the whole system, vitalizing all organs and functions of life. 
Thus the lymphatics will be moved to wash out impurities and 
the nutritive nerves will rebuild lost energy. As but little is 
known or said of how or where the cerumen is formed, we will 
guess it is formed under the skin in the fascia and conveyed to 
the ears by the secretory ducts. Its place and how it is man- 
ufactured are not questions of as great importance as its use in 
disease and health. I have reason to believe I have found a 
reliable pointer for the cause of croup, diphtheria, and pneu- 
monia ; also a rational cure which any mother can appropriate, 
and thus save her babe from choking to death in her arms. 
Having witnessed croup in all its deadly work for fifty years, and 
seen the best skill of each year and generation fail to save, or 
even give relief, I lost all hope, and began to believe there was 
no help, and that the doctor was only one more witness to the 
scene of death and carnage found along the mysterious road 



300 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

that croup travels in its destruction of the babes of the earth. 
Of late days we have new and different names for the disease ; 
but, alas ! it kills the babes just as it did before it was called 
diphtheria, la grippe, and so on. 

Written por the Home 

I write this more for the mothers than for the critics. I 
say to you mothers, as you are not osteopaths, you are per- 
fectly safe in putting glycerine in a child's ears. It is made 
from oils and fats. I believe when the wax is not consumed 
it clogs up the excretories with dead matter, and the irritation 
of the nerves of the throat, neck, lungs, and lymphatics give 
cause for the swelling of the tonsils and glands of the neck. I 
see wisdom in treating croup from the nerve-centers of the 
brain. The uses and importance of healthy ear-wax as a cure 
for disease has not had the attention of any author on disease 
or physiology, so far as I can find. I hope time and atten- 
tion may lead us to a better knowledge of cures for diphtheria, 
croup, scarlet fever, and all diseases of the throat and lungs. 
My experience up to date with such diseases, when treated as 
indicated, by keeping the ear-wax in a fluid state, has been 
very encouraging. Though it has been but a short time since 
I began treatment by this method, it has proven successful 
with both the young and old 

As all authors so far seem silent, even on the subject of when 
or how the wax is formed, we must resort to careful investigation 
to find the relation of the cerumen system to health. To intel- 
ligently acquaint the mother with this treatment, who does not 
understand anatomy sufficiently to give osteopathic treatment 
for croup, diphtheria, and so on, I will say : Take a soft cloth, 
wet, and wash the child's neck and rub gently down from the 
ears to the breast and shoulders ; keep the ears moistened, fre- 
quently dropping glycerine into them. Use glycerine, because 



BAR-WAX AND ITS USES. 3 01 

it will mix with the water and dissolve the wax, while sweet oil 
and other oils will not do so. 

No Time for Debate. 
On one occasion I was called to see a babe having malig- 
nant croup in its worst form. I examined its ears to see the 
condition of the wax. I had noticed in consumptives that 
some cases had great quantities of dry wax in one or both ears, 
but up to this time I had not thought of such deposits as be- 
ing an evidence of lost or suspended action of the nerves that 
manufactured cerumen and sustained vitality. In this case I 
found the wax dry and very hard, with considerable swell- 
ing and hardness in the region of the ears, Eustachian tubes, 
and tonsils. I reasoned that the excretory duct had become 
clogged, and that by the wax being retained in ducts and glands 
an irritation of the nerves of the cervical lymphatics had caused 
contraction near the head, and had produced congestion of the 
lymphatics, of the pneumogastric, and cut off the nerve-supply 
from the lungs. Believing this to be very likely, I concluded 
to act on the above line of reasoning and see if I could give 
some relief. I did not stop to debate why the wax was hard 
and dry, but how to soften the wax was the question of import- 
ance to me then. So I proceeded. I reasoned that soap and 
water would be the best treatment to clean the ears and soften 
the wax. At this point the selection of the best make of soap 
was desired, so I took pure glycerine and water, dropped in a 
few drops, and took a small roll of cloth moistened in warm 
water and pushed it into the ears to keep them wet. In a few 
minutes I dampened and inserted soft cloth corks into the 
child's ears. I twisted the corks around in the ears to mix the 
water and wax to a softened condition. In a few minutes I got 
the wax softened, and the child coughed up phlegm easily, and 
when came the dreaded hour, ten o'clock at night, all danger 
had passed. 



CHAPTER XV. 



Convulsions. 

Old Systems Unreliable. 

I have been trying to unfold, and feel I have succeeded in 
unfolding to a better understanding, natural laws ; laws which 
should be our guide and action in treating all diseases that mar 
the peace and happiness of the human race by misery and death. 
Old systems, with their unreliable suggestions to guide the doc- 
tor in treating diseases, have proven unworthy of respect, if 
merit is to be the rule of the weights and measures of intelligence. 
I have become so disgusted with the verbiage and nonsense 
that follow the pens on treatises on disease that I have con- 
cluded, for the time being, to give names that may appear 
novel to the reader, as I draw his attention to a knowledge of 
the mysteries hitherto unsolved and unexplained. We have 
panned and washed along the suggestions of the medical author- 
ities, and have obtained no gold. 

There are two very large and powerful rivers passing fluids 
in opposite directions over a territory that I will call the Klon- 
dike of life. This territory is bounded on the east by a great 
wall, which, according to the old books, is called the diaphragm. 
Through this wall courses a great river of life that spreads all 
over the plains of the anterior lumbar region. On that plain 
we find a great system of perfect irrigation of cities, villages, 
and fertile soils of life. This region of country covers one of 
the greatest and most fertile fields of life-producing elements, 
and places its products on the thoroughfares, and sends them 



CONVULSIONS. 303 

back over the great central railroad, the thoracic duct, from 
lymphatics of the abdomen, to the heart and lungs, to be con- 
verted into a higher order of living matter. When refined 
there, it is called blood, and is used to sustain its own machin- 
ery, and all other machines of the body. What would be the 
effect on life and health if we should cut off, dam up, or sus- 
pend the flow of the aorta as it descends close to the vena cava 
and thoracic duct as they return with their contents through 
the diaphragm on their journey to the heart and lungs? And 
after having supplied the plain, what would be the effect if the 
vena cava and its system of drainage, and the thoracic duct, 
should be dammed up so that chyle and blood could not be car- 
ried to the heart and lungs for renewal and purification and 
changes? How much thought would it require to see that by 
stopping the arterial flow or that of the vena cava, an irritating 
and famishing condition would ensue, with congested veins, 
lymphatics, and all organs of the abdomen, causing fermenta- 
tion, congestion, and inflammation, which in time cause con- 
fusion and conditions that have long been a mystery, and have 
been called typhoid fever, dysentery, bilious fever, periodical 
spasms, and so on through the whole list of general and special 
diseases. 

Panning for Gold. 
I would advise the practicing osteopath to do some very 
careful panning up and down the rivers of the Klondike, for if 
you fail to find gold, and much of it, you would better spend 
the remainder of your life where reason dwelleth not. Ever 
remember that ignorance of the geography and customs of this 
country is the wet powder of success. 

Fits. 
We often see persons afflicted with fits or falling sick- 
ness, which the doctor has failed to cure. What is a fit? For 



304 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

want of better knowledge, we have an established theory that 
"hysteria" is purely a woman's imagination, and, as we mnst 
respect old theories, we will call it a fit of meanness. This and 
other theories we have had for breakfast, dinner, and supper, 
year in and year out, and we are asked to respect such trash 
because of "established theories." We are instructed by the 
universal "all" of the various medical schools to proceed to 
punish her with a wet towel, well twisted and administered 
freely, more comprehensively expressed by the term " spanker," 
and spank her very much. The American School of Osteopathy 
has made a departure, however, and has issued orders to "wal- 
lop," and "wallop" very freely, the empty-headed schools and 
theories that have no more sense than to torture a sick person, 
and do so only to disguise their ignorance of the cause of her 
disease. This ignorance is shown by the name of the spas- 
modic effect that has been given by the little book of guess- 
work, generally called and known as " symptomatology." 

Not a single author has hinted or in any way intimated 
that the cause of her disease is a failure of the passing of the 
blood, chyle, and other substances to and from the abdomen 
to nourish and renovate the abdominal viscera, that are dis- 
eased owing to a lapsed diaphragm, which would cause resist- 
ance to the blood-flow in the aorta, through which passes the 
arterial blood, and the vena cava, through which the venous 
blood returns. There must also be interference with the flow 
from the receptaculum chyli. 

The afflicted one is intoxicated. Here is where she gets a 
poisonous alcohol, and will never be relieved permanently until 
the "wet towel" of reason has been slapped on both sides of the 
attending physician's head, so he can hear the squeezing and 
rattling of regurgitation, and the straining and creaking of the 
fluids in their effort to pass through the diaphragm. Until he 
learns this, I would apply the " wet towel" of reason to the doc- 



CONVULSIONS. 305 

tor, for fear he might become lukewarm in his studies and give his 
patient a hypodermic injection of morphine, which is the advice 
given at one of the recent conventions of medical men, who 
practice "old established " theories rather than be honest enough 
to say, ' ' The woman is sick and I know it, but I do not know the 
cause of her trouble." 

What Is a Fit? 

If God's judgment is to be respected, a fit is the life-saving 
step and move, perfectly natural, perfectly reasonable, and it 
should be respected and received as divinely wise, because on 
that natural action which is thus produced on the constrictor 
nerves first, then the muscles, veins, nerves, and arteries with 
all their centers. It appears that the vital fluids have all been 
used up or consumed by the sensory system, and in order to be 
temporarily replenished, this convulsion shows its natural use 
by squeezing vital fluids from all parts of the body to nour- 
ish and sustain the sensory system, which has been emptied by 
mental and vital action, until death would have been inevitable 
without this convulsing element to supply the sensory system, 
though it may be but for a short time. 

The oftener fits come the oftener the nutrient part of the 
sensory system cries aloud in its own though unmistakable 
language, that it must have nourishment that it may run the 
machinery of life, or it must give up the ghost and die. In 
this dire extremity and struggle for life, it has asked the motor 
system to suspend its action, use its power, and squeeze out of 
any part of the whole body, though it be the brain itself, a few 
drops of cerebro-spinal fluid, or anything higher or lower, so it 
may live. 

Those of you who are acquainted with the fertile fields 
which we have here referred to will be enabled to furnish the 
sensory system with such nutriment as will not make it neces- 



306 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

sary to appeal to you through the language used by the uncon- 
scious convulsions with all their horrible contortions. 

You surely see with the microscope of reason that the sen- 
sory nerves must be constantly nourished, and that all nutri- 
ment for the nerves must be obtained from the abdomen, 
though its propelling force should come directly from the brain. 
The nerve-course from the brain must be unobstructed from 
the cerebrum, cerebellum, medulla oblongata, and on through 
the whole spinal cord. We must have a normal neck, a normal 
back, and normal ribs, which means to an osteopath careful 
work, with a power to know and a mind to reason that the work 
is done wisely to a finish. I hope that with these suggestions 
you will go on with the investigation to a satisfactory degree of 
success. 

Rib Dislocations. 

I wish to insert a short paragraph on a few effects follow- 
ing a downward, forward, and outward dislocation of the four 
upper ribs on either side. We have been familiar with asthma, 
goitre, pen paralysis, shaking palsy, spasms, and heart diseases 
of various kinds. We have been as familiar with the existence 
of those abnormal variations as we are with the rising and the 
setting of the sun. Our best philosophers on diseases and 
causes have elaborately compiled and published their conclu- 
sions, and the world has carefully perused with deep interest 
what they have said of all these diseases and of diseases of 
the lungs. We are left, however, in total darkenss as to the 
cause of those diseases, as well as of fits, insanity, loss of voice, 
brachial agitans, and many other diseases of the chest, neck, 
and head. As the field is open for any philosopher to make 
known the results of his observations, I will avail myself of this 
opportunity and say in a very few words that I have found no 



CONVULSIONS. 307 

one of these diseases to have an existence without some varia- 
ation of the first few of the upper ribs of the chest. With this 
I will leave farther exploration in the hands of other persons, 
and await the reports of their observations pro and con. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



Obstetrics. 



Morning Sickness. 



When a woman disregards the laws of Nature to such an 
extent as to overload the stomach beyond its powers and lim- 
its, distending it so that it occupies so much space as to cripple 
the laws of digestion and retain the food, decomposition will set 
up an irritation of the nerves of the mucous membranes to such 
an extent as to cause sickness and vomiting. When the nerves 
cannot take up nutrition, they will take up destruction and 
other elements which are detrimental to the process of nutri- 
tion, and there is no other chance for relief except in "unload- 
ing." The stomach itself is a sac. When filled to its greatest 
capacity, it irritates all the surroundings, and in return they 
irritate the stomach. Thus it unloads naturally for relief. 
Now we wish to treat of another vessel similar in size, similar 
in all its actions, which receives nourishment for a being, which 
nourishment is contained in the blood, and conveyed from the 
channels commonly known as uterine arteries. To all intents 
and purposes, this nourishment is taken there to sustain animal 
life. After having constructed the machinery, it appropriates 
the blood to the growth and existence of a human being. This 
is the womb. The placenta in the womb is provided with all 
the machinery necessary to the preparation of blood that is 
used for all purposes in the formation and development of a 
child. Both the stomach and womb receive and distribute 
nourishment to sustain animal life. Both get sick; both vomit 






OBSTETRICS. 309 

when irritated, and discharge their load by the natural law of 
"throw up" and "throw down." Now note the difference and 
govern yourselves accordingly. The one is the upper stomach 
that takes coarser material and refines the unrefined substan- 
ces, and keeps the outer man in form and being. The other 
contains the inner man or child, and by the law of ejection, when 
it becomes an irritant, it is thrown out by the nerves that gov- 
ern the muscles of ejection. 

Cause. 
Diseases of the nerves of the pelvis come from pressure of 
the bowels and other organs of the abdomen and osseous dis- 
turbances. Thus we have a cause for morning sickness in preg- 
nancy. All the nerves of the pelvis are pressed down upon 
from above by the weight of the large and small intestines and 
the weight of the womb pressing down upon the nerves of the 
sacrum and pelvis. Thus morning sickness seems to be natural. 
We would conclude, from the relation of arteries and nerves 
which at this time begin an active upbuilding for the devel- 
opment of the foetus, that any disturbance from the normal 
would be a cause for this sickness. 

Treatment. 
To relieve such conditions, having the patient in the knee- 
and-chest position will place the abdomen in the proper form 
for unloading the pelvis of any impacted condition. Then place 
the hands low down on the abdomen and draw the contents 
of the pelvis forward toward the umbilicus and up from the pel- 
vis, to give free passage of blood and other fluids circulating in 
the lower part of the abdomen. Often the bowels are filled 
with dry faecal matter and press upon the uterus, rectum, and 
bladder, causing irritation of nerves of the organs of the abdo- 
men, also pressing on the blood- and lymph-vessels, stopping 



3IO PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OF OSTEOPATHY. 

healthy action in the economy of life in the whole viscera. Thus 
to be sick at the stomach would be natural. We reason that 
to confuse the normal flow of the fluids that enter into the for- 
mation of urine would cause these fluids to be taken up by other 
secretory ducts and conveyed to nerve-peripheries and cells, 
causing sickness at the stomach. We find, by any method of 
reasoning, that morning sickness is the result of poisonous 
fluids being taken up by the solar system, and that it is the 
effort to get such poisons out of the system that makes vomiting 
necessary. 

To assist the young operator, we would suggest that he 
refresh his mind, previous to proceeding with operations to 
relieve the stomach of this irritable condition, by looking over 
the nerve- and blood-supply of the uterus and other abdominal 
organs. Know the nerve-supply of the uterus ; know the ova- 
rian plexus and the inferior hypogastric and sacral nerves, 
with which you are no doubt familiar. The blood-supply of 
the uterus comes from the ovarian, vaginal, and uterine arteries, 
with which the student should also be familiar. 

Development op the Fcbtus. 
Just as long as digestion and assimilation keep in harmony 
and the mother generates good blood in abundance, the child 
grows, and by nature the womb is willing to let the work of 
building the body of the child go on indefinitely. But Nature 
has placed all the functions of animal life under laws that are 
absolute and must be obeyed. We are asked to note the sim- 
ilarity of the stomach and womb, as both receive and pass 
nutriment to a body for assimilation and growth. When a 
stomach gets overloaded, sickness begins, because digestion and 
assimilation have stopped; then the decaying matter is taken 
up by the terminal nerves and conveyed to the solar plexus, 
causing the nerves of ejection to throw the dying matter out of 



OBSTETRICS. 1 311 

the stomach. Try your reason and see the stomach below 
sicken and unload its burden. Is this sickness natural and 
wisely caused? If this is not the philosophy of midwifery, 
what is? As soon as a being takes possession of its room, the 
commissary of supplies begins to furnish rations for that being, 
which has to build for itself a dwelling-place. The house must 
be built strictly to the letter of the specifications. Much bone 
and flesh must be put into the house, and some of all elements 
known to the chemist must be used and wisely blended to give 
strength. All material to be used in the house must be exact 
in form and of given strength, sufficient to furnish the forces 
that may be necessary to execute the hard and continued labors 
of the machinery that is used in all these transactions and 
motions of mind and body. Now we must go to the manufact- 
uring chief and have him, through the quartermaster, deliver 
and keep a full supply of all kinds of material for the work, and 
when the engine is done, put it on an inclined plane and cut 
the stay-chains and let it run out of the shop. Be careful not 
to let the engine deface or tear the door as it comes out. A 
question is asked : On what road does the quartermaster send 
the supplies? As there is but one system over which the engine 
can bring supplies, we will call that road the uterine system of 
arteries. The machinist replies that he will open the door of 
this great manufacturing shop and let the engine roll out by 
the power and methods prepared to run out finished work. 
First you see a door open because the lock is taken off by a key 
that opens all mysteries. The great ropes that have been far 
inferior to the power of resistance that has held the door shut 
are all-sufficient in power. By getting sick, muscles become 
convulsed with force enough to easily push the new engine of 
life out into open space, by Nature's team that never fails to 
deliver all goods entrusted to its care. 



312 philosophy and principles op osteopathy. 

Preparation 

A student of midwifery can only learn a few general prin- 
ciples before he gets into the field of experience. Actual con- 
tact with labor teaches him that much that he has read is of but 
little use to him at the bedside. What he needs to know is 
what he will have to do after he gets there. He must know 
the form and size of the bones of a woman and how large a hole 
the three bones of the pelvis make, for the reason that the 
child's head will soon come through that space. He must know 
a normal head cannot come through a pelvis that has been 
crushed in so much as to bring the pubes within ij to 2 J 
inches of the sacrum. He must examine and know these con- 
ditions soon after he is called, for the reason that he will have 
to use instruments in such deformities, and may wish the 
counsel of an older and more experienced doctor. This pre- 
caution will give him time to be ready for any emergency. 

More than 90 per cent of all cases, however, are of a very 
simple nature. The mother is warned by pains in the back 
and womb at repeated intervals of one-half hour or less. When 
by the finger the doctor can tell the mouth of the womb has 
opened to the size of a quarter or half-dollar, he then may know 
that labor will soon start, and at this time it is well to call for 
twine and prepare two strings about a foot long to tie around 
the navel-cord. 

Caution. 
The first duty of the obstetrician is to carefully examine 
the bones of the pelvis and spine of the mother, to ascertain if 
they are normal in shape and position. If there is any doubt 
about the spine and pelvis being in good condition for the 
passage of the head through the bones, and you find the pelvic 
deformity enough to prohibit the passage of the head, notify 
the parties of the danger in the case at once, and that you do 



OBSTETRICS. 313 

not wish to take the responsibility alone, as it may require 
instruments to deliver the child and there is danger of death to 
the child and to the mother also, but less danger to the mother 
than to the child. Now you have done that which is a safeguard 
against all troubles following criminal ignorance. 

First Examination. 
I will give you a condensed rule of procedure in all normal 
cases of obstetrics. With the index finger, examine the os 
uteri; if closed and only backache, have the patient turn on 
her right side, and press the hand on the abdomen above the 
pelvis, and gently press or lift the belly up just enough to allow 
the blood to pass down and up the pelvis and limbs. Relax all 
nerves of the pelvis at the pubes. 

Second Examination. 
Wait a few hours and examine the os again. If still closed 
and no periodical pains are present, you are safe to leave the 
case in the hands of the nurse, instructed to send for you if reg- 
ular pains return at intervals. On your return, explore the os 
again, and if it is found to open as large as a dime, you are noti- 
fied that labor has begun its work of delivery. You now place 
the patient on her back, propped to an easy angle of nearly 30 
degrees, with a rubber blanket in place. After you find the os 
dilated to nearly the size of a dollar, then relax the nerves at 
the pubes. Soon you will find in the mouth of the womb an 
egg-shaped pouch of water, which you must not press with the 
fingers until very late in labor, for fear of stopping labor for 
perhaps many hours. Remember the head can and does turn in 
the pelvis to suit the easiest passage through the bones, while 
in the fluids of the amniotic sac. Now, as you know why not 
to rupture the sac and spill the fluids, you are prepared to pro- 
ceed to other duties, which are to prevent rupture of the per- 



314 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

ineum. Place the left hand on the belly, about two inches 
above the symphysis, and push the soft parts down with the 
left hand ; support the perineum with the right hand until the 
head passes over. This is necessary to prevent rupture of the 
perineum. If you follow this law of Nature, laceration may 
occur in one out of a thousand cases, and you will be to blame 
for that one, and may be censured for criminal ignorance. 

Now you have conducted the head safely through the pel- 
vis and vagina to the world. You will find the pains stop right 
short off for about a minute, and that is the time to learn 
whether the navel-cord is wrapped around the child's neck. If 
it is found twisted around the neck once or more, you must slip 
a finger around the neck and loosen the cord, to let blood pass 
through the cord until the next pain comes, in order to ward off 
asphyxia of the child. 

Care of the Cord. 
When the next pain comes, gently pull the child's head 
down toward the bed. There is no danger of hurting the per- 
ineum now that the head has passed the soft parts. At this 
time the danger is suffocation of the child. Never draw the 
child too far away from mother's birth-place by force, as you 
may tear the navel-string from the child and cause it to bleed 
to death. If you value the life of the child, then you must be 
careful not to place the navel end of the string in any danger 
of being torn off. Now you have done good work for both 
mother and child. The child is in the world, and you want to 
show the mother a living baby for her labor and suffering of 
the past nine months. The baby is born, and the mother is 
not torn. But the baby has not yet cried. Turn it on its side, 
face down, run your finger in its mouth, and draw out all fluids, 
thick or thin, to allow air into the lungs. Then blow cold 
breath on its face and breast to stimulate the lungs into action. 



obstetrics. 315 

Severing the Cord. 
The baby cries and all is safe. Baby is born and cries 
nicely, but still has the cord fastened to the afterbirth. It has 
no further use for the cord, as life does not depend on blood 
from the afterbirth any longer. Take the cord about three 
inches from the child's belly, between your thumb and finger, 
and strip toward the child to push the bowels out of the cord 
if there should be any in it, as a safeguard for the bowels ; then 
tie a strong string around the cord — first, three inches from the 
child's belly, and second, four inches; take the cord in your 
hand and attend carefully to what you are doing. If the baby's 
hand should fall back to the cord, you might cut off one or two 
fingers, or wound the hand or arm very seriously. Cut the 
cord between the two strings just tied around the navel-string, 
and look out for your scissors ; then pass the child over to the 
nurse to be washed and dressed, while you deliver the after- 
birth from the pelvis or womb. 

Dressing the Cord. 
As the child is cared for, cut a hole the size of your thumb 
in a doubled piece of cloth, five inches long by four wide, put 
the hole two inches from one end, and run the cord through 
the hole. Lay the cloth aross the child's belly; then fold the 
cloth lengthwise over the cord, which must lie across the child 
so it will not stretch the cord by handling or straightening the 
child out. Now you are ready to finish the delivery of the 
afterbirth. You have a plug of soft and tender flesh to get out 
of the womb and vagina. 

Delivery of the Afterbirth. 
As the afterbirth has grown tight to the womb during all 
the days of the mother's pregnancy, furnishing all the blood 
to build and keep the child alive in the womb for nine months, 



316 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

it has done all it can do for the child and is now ready to leave 
the womb. You are there to assist it to get out of the place it 
has occupied so long. You must begin to rotate or roll the pla- 
centa, first one way and then another, up, down, and across the 
vagina, by gently pulling the cord. Look out, or you will pull 
the cord loose from the placenta, and then you will have made 
your first blunder, with no cord with which to pull the placenta 
out, and the mother bleeding and faint from loss of blood. 
Now is the time and place to save life. Pass your hand for- 
ward into the soft parts to get your fingers behind the placenta ; 
now give a rolling pull and bring it out with the hand. You 
will find it an easy matter to get your hand into the vagina and 
womb after the birth of the child. Get all the placenta out; 
then take a wad of cloth as large as the child's head and press it 
under the cross-bone of the pelvis ; push the cloth under and 
up, so as to completely plug the pelvis. Now pull the hair 
gently over the symphysis, which will cause the womb to con- 
tract by irritation. 

Care of the Mother. 
All is now done excepting provision for the mother's com- 
fort, which is your next duty. Draw her chemise down her 
back and legs until it is straight ; then, with safety-pins, pin the 
chemise on the inner side of the thighs, so that the chemise will 
go around each thigh separately. Now you have the shirt fast 
to keep it from sliding upward, and you are ready to make a 
band of the chemise to support the womb and abdomen. Bring 
the chemise tightly together for two or three inches above the 
pelvis to form a band. Previous to pinning, draw the womb, 
which you feel above the symphysis, up ; then pin, and the belt 
you have made of the chemise will support the womb. All is 
safe now, but you must not leave for two hours. You may 
have delivered a child from a feeble woman who may flood to 
death after the delivery of the child, if you do not leave her 



OBSTETRICS. 317 

safe. I have in mind one case who flooded all of two quarts at 
a single dash. The first symptom was a pain in the head. 

Post- Delivery Hemorrhage. 
I know of only two causes that would produce hemorrhage 
or bleeding after the child is delivered. One is when the after- 
birth, the placenta, is separated from its attachment to the 
womb and still retained in the womb or vagina, or when a part 
is separated and still lies in the womb. That retention of pla- 
centa preventing the natural circular contraction of the womb 
to close on itself and retain it, with force enough to prevent 
the further discharge of blood, would give a chance for a con- 
tinued stream. Then, should the patient bleed profusely after 
the placenta has been removed, another cause would be in pull- 
ing away the afterbirth, as part of the upper portion of the 
womb may be pulled to an inverted position, which would be 
like a hat if you should press the top down with the hand. 
Then there is a chance for leakage because of this unnatural 
fold made in the womb. 

Treatment. 
My method of relief is to insert the hand and with the backs 
of the fingers smooth out all folds. Before you draw the right 
hand from the womb, place the left hand on the abdomen, 
catch the womb between the thumb and finger, and withdraw 
the hand. With the left hand pull the hair above the sym- 
physis or scratch the flesh just above and across the region of 
the symphysis, just enough to make an irritation. After the 
hand is out of the vagina, pass a small bundle of cloths as far 
under the symphysis as would be necessary to hold everything 
up, and then fasten the chemise, beginning at the symphysis 
and drawing it tight about two inches above the symphysis, 
fastening it with strong pins. Be sure you keep the garment 



318 PHILOSOPHY AND PRINCIPLES OP OSTEOPATHY. 

tight by pulling it down between the thighs. The coarser the 
chemise the better, as you want to make a strong bandage at 
that point, so as not to push the womb down into the pelvis. If 
the patient's general health is fairly good, allow her to tell you 
what she wants to eat and give it to her. Let her diet be in 
line with her usual custom. You must remember that she has 
just left the condition of a full abdomen. Lace her up, fill her 
up, and make her comfortable for six hours; then change her 
bedding. 

Diet. 
Remember this, that if you stop digestion for some hours 
with teas, soups, and shadows to eat, you carry her to a condi- 
tion where it would be dangerous to give her a hearty meal. 
My experience and custom for forty years has been crowned 
with good success. I never lost a case in confinement. I have 
universally told the cook to give her plenty to eat. 

Treatment of the Breast. 
If your patient begins to have fever, followed by chilly sen- 
sations, with swelling of one or both breasts, I relieve that by 
laying her arm ranging with her body. Let someone hold the 
arm down to the bed ; then I place both of my hands under the 
arm and pull it up with considerable force till I get it as high or 
higher than the normal position of the shoulder. Then pull her 
shoulder straight out from the body, a fairly good pull; then 
pull the arm up on a straight line with the face, and be sure 
that you have let loose the axillary and mammary veins, nerve, 
and artery, which have been cramped by pulling the arm down 
during delivery. No breast should become caked in the hands 
of an osteopath. Do not bother about the bowels for two or 
three days. It may be necessary to use the catheter if the 
water should fail to pass off after inhibiting the pubic system. 



OBSTETRICS. 319 

This is straight midwifery, and will guide you through in at 
least 90 per cent of the cases you will meet in normally formed 
women. 

ight here 1 wish to say one word. I think it is very 
wrong to teach, talk, and spend so much time with pictures, 
cuts, talks, and lectures, and hold up constantly to the view of 
the student births coming from the worst possible deformities, 
and call that a knowledge of midwifery. It is normal mid- 
wifery you want to know and be well skilled in. The abnormal 
formations are few and far between, and when a case of that 
k.*nd does appear, it is your knowledge of the normal that guides 
you through the variations. You will very likely neve*- find 
two abnormal conditions presenting the same form of bone. 
As this is intended only to present to students natural delivery, 
I will let the subject drop with one word about the sore tongue 
of the mother. Adjust her neck, and relieve constrictor and 
other muscles that would impede any blood-vessel that should 
drain the mouth and tongue. Remember this, that a horse that 
is always hunting bugbears never finds a smooth road. 



am SI 



M 






%~K 



